So it had been awhile since I was drunk. Actually, it had been about 2 1/2 years since that rough night my senior year of high school. Now I was a junior in college -- of legal age -- and I hadn't meant to get drunk. It just happened. I didn't even like alcohol at the time. Frankly, I was terrified of it. I thought that alcohol essentially led to something similar to the film, Reefer Madness.
The night had started with a friend inviting me over to his house to smoke cigars. He had recently realized he was in love with the girl he was dating and he wanted to marry her. Tonight, he wanted to have a small, private get-together with some cigars and maybe a couple drinks. Nothing too wild.
I got over there and there were four of us. We started smoking cigars and my friends broke out a couple beers. The host of the evening offered me one and I declined; I didn't like the taste of beer. It made me gag. (It would take me almost another 2 years to develop a taste for any beer.)
"That's OK," he said. "I have some stuff to make mudslides. It tastes just like a milkshake, but with some alcohol in it."
I said I would try a little. "Not a lot," I emphasized. "I'll just have a little glass."
So he hands me this martini glass that has, what looks like a chocolate shake in it. I smelled it. Didn't smell too bad. I dabbed it with my tongue. A little sour for a chocolate milkshake, but not bad. So I took a sip.
"Hmm," I thought. "That's not that bad at all."
Three glasses later, I was informed that I was actually drinking a mudslide mix, and that the host had intended me to dilute it with ice cream. Since I hadn't diluted it, I had essentially done about 5 shots of vodka over the course of the previous 80 minutes.
"I see," I calmly said. "That explains why the walls are spinning."
I started my fourth glass (no sense quitting while you are already behind) and sat on the couch as the host started talking about what he looked forward to most with the girl he was planning on asking to marry him, his bride-to-be-to-be.
"I can't wait to have somebody to wake up next to and to experience life with and, of course, to have sex with."
At this point, the mudslides granted me great intellectual and philosophical powers -- (I know this because the next day my brain felt as if it had been working extra hard the night before.) -- "WAIT," I chimed in.
The other three looked at me, waiting to hear what gems of wisdom I'd spout out.
"S-sex is dumb. It's stupid. Lame. That's not the point of marriage," I said not knowing what I would slur next. "The point of marriage is the little things. Watching TV together. Playing board games. Family game night. That's what I look forward to."
"Ben," the host, obviously touched by the wisdom I had spoken, said. "You are drunk. You're also spilling mudslide mix on your shirt. Also, I don't think you know how sex works."
He was on to me.
"Ben," the host continued. "Family game nights are boring. I think I will like the sex better."
Rebutted and desperately clinging to a couch that was doing 360's at a faster and faster pace, I thought about what my friend, the host, had said. Maybe I didn't get it. Maybe the physical aspects of marriage were the best part.
Years later, I still hide on that mountain from time to time. I'm not willing to die on the mountain of Family Game Night, but I like to visit it every once in awhile. See, I get that there are certain adult activities and tax provisions that make marriage seem worth it, but I'd like to think, foolishly, that the best things in marriage live in the mundane.
I make dinner for myself and I wonder what it would be like to make it with somebody I care about that doesn't have a wiener.
I sit in bed and stare at the ceiling and wonder if a spouse would think the stain above me looked like Edward R. Murrow too or if she would say I was being naive, that it was really Chubby Checker.
I watch movies and wonder what it might feel like to have a spouse agree with me that this movie sucks and we should turn it off and go out for ice cream but she needed to take her lact-aid pill, because dairy just doesn't sit well with her.
I stand in front of the wall of pasta sauces at the store and dream of a time when I can get into a heated argument about Prego vs. Ragu so that one of us can storm of crying to the cereal aisle because the other one said we were "as italian as William Wallace."
I wonder what it would be like to say, "That's what she said." And to actually have a specific "she" that I was referring to.
Yeah, there's other stuff about marriage that is nice I'm sure. But I'm pretty low-maintenance.
After the mudslide incident, I'd have other discussions about marriage with those guys. Sure enough, I tend to get dismissed with comments about "Family Game Night" or "Chocolate Mudslides." I've probably earned that. Sometimes, when I get a few drinks in me, I just say some plain, old, stupid stuff.
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