On the subject of employee holiday parties, and the day after

I arrived at the Loon around nine at night, apprehensive and wanting to turn around and go home. I smoked one of my last five cigarettes outside while I worked up the nerve to go inside. Mistake #2. (Mistake #1 was having a few glasses of wine before leaving home). I walk inside and am greeted by a a few co-workers I vaguely know; Ryan or Bryan and...Chris I think. I see Nester and Shawn (kitchen folk) and wander over. I take off my coat and order my first of many glasses of wine. I hear someone yell my name, and over in corner are Shala and Kathy my bosses with some of the Ecuadorian kitchen staff. I go over, say my hi's and gulp down some liquid courage. I find out we can smoke upstairs so it's on to cigarette number two already. I gulp wine I make painful smalltalk.
It's two hours later, I'm drunk and I went out and bought cigarettes. It's time for the door prizes. I find myself with two tickets instead of one like everyone else. First number called, me. Oh goody, I get to pick from a bunch of football crap or a giant bottle of vodka. And into the purse goes my new friend Absolut. I watch as the other prizes are handed out, all the while keeping an eye on my other ticket. The number gets called! Hoorah! I won...a smoker? What the hell am I going to do with a smoker? Applause applause, I'm so popular now, I'm a double winner. I feel like
Zoidberg.


It's later, I'm chain smoking, I'm talking at people, I'm taking pictures. I go downstairs and Shawn (who had won the other bottle of vodka) was passing around his prize with all the Ecuadorians. A shot glass is being passed around a round table with the vodka and everybody is chanting. Cello! Cello! Rueben! Rueben! Sarah! Sarah! What me? no thanks, I'm already drunk, I don't need to puke or pass out. Why don't you take my shot? Shalla! Shalla! Oh, the good times. Oh no, the bottle is gone? Sarah to the rescue, you guys can have mine!

I'm smoking now and it's become apparent I am over my limit. I keep looking at my phone to check bus times but every time I look, another half hour has passed and I've just missed the most recent one. And now it's 1:15 and the next bus isn't until 2:20? Is that right? Do the buses run that late on Sunday? Are you lying to me Blackberry? Fuck and Shit, I need to flee and I need to flee now. I've got to take a cab.


The next morning....what have I done? What fool of myself have I made? Was it worth it? I try to sleep as much as possible before work, the sense of dread slowing growing in the pit of my stomach. I take the bus to work and before I walk in, I seriously think about just turning around and going home. I have to be here for 7 hours. If I quit, I wonder if I could beg for my job back tomorrow? Maybe I should have a knife "accident;" would it be better or worse to spend the next 7 hours in a hospital? I walk in. Everyone is very quiet. I can tell that everyone is tired and crabby. I see Kathy, and we say hi without making eye contact. "You forgot your smoker at the bar." Shit, in my desperation to flee I forgot my new toy. Fuck it, my loss is someone else's gain.
I feel shaky and dehydrated, I chuck a coffee and then a water and another water and then a coke. It doesn't even feel like I'm swallowing, they're just being absorbed into me. Time doesn't move. So. Tired.

No more employee parties. I'm gettin' too old for this shit.