Alex's Bizzare Party Exploits

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This is Scott's third-party account of the events of the evening of 10 December 1994.

The set-up

>Alex Meyer <ameyer@verity.com> writes:
>>Scott, I think that you, as an objective third party,
>>had best answer this one...
>>
>>John Doe <jdoe@foo.com> writes:
>>>So did you wind up going to Jim Trumpbour's party on
>>>Saturday?  How wild was it?  Any good stories?

The adventure

Well, Alex and I did end up going to Jim Trumpbour's party on Saturday. I was the designated driver and I can say that it was definitely an interesting experience. Not particularly wild, but I was definitely freaked-out by the end of the night...

As usual, we arrived way too early. We drove up the World's Steepest Driveway(TM) to see Jim in the shower (according to Alex, I was too busy driving to notice). The party never got particularly huge (2-3 dozen max?) and there were only about a half dozen people there when we arrived. Luckily, Les Pembroke was there to keep us company while we waited for other guests to arrive...

The house was nicely decorated and, being in the hills, has an awesome view of the bay. Jim had whipped up some of the best munchies I'd seen in a while: candy, cheese & crackers, chips & salsa, crudites :-), and even felafil! One of Jim's roomates was apparently a bartender at some point in his life, and as a result they had an amazingly well-stocked bar. They also had two kegs, an amber from the Santa Cruz Brewing Co. and a Coor Light. Alex spent quite a bit of time pouring foam from the SC keg into Jim's backyard, and it eventually turned into a pretty good beer.

I'd have to say the party was pretty good, but you have to take that in context. I really hate large parties where I don't know anyone. The only reason I go is to: a) drink, or b) stand around and watch people. A number of interesting things happened, but Alex was definitely the height of Category B...

At some point during the night, we met this woman named Ann and her friend whose name I forget. Ann is a lawyer (excuse me, Counselor) and her friend was an ultrasound technician who specialized in prostate glands. Alex tells me he thought Ann looked "scary", but that may be because of what he found out later...

Anyway, I thought she was moderately attractive. She was the first of about 4-6 women who were wearing short skirts and black stockings that stopped just above the knee. It seems to me that this is a device designed to trap gawking men. Their heads will rapidly bob up and down (breasts, thighs, breasts, thighs, breasts, ...) and it will be immediately obvious that they're only interested in one thing. She was wearing a white blouse and matching, dark-gray plaid vest and skirt. She was also wearing very dark, severe lipstick; the kind of thing I'd normally expect from a girl with a blue mohawk and black fingernails. Alex claims that her eyes didn't always point in the same direction, but frankly he was drunk out of his mind and I didn't notice it. All in all, I'd have guessed she was slightly older than me; maybe 30 or so.

I was under the impression that Alex, being drunk and in rare form, managed to offend Ann after only about 5 seconds. I don't remember exactly what he said, but she sort of rolled her eyes and gave me this "Oh, no, not another drunk guy" look. I don't remember what she said, but I remember thinking that she was a little too high-brow (read: stuck up) to be one of Jim's friends. It turned out she knew Peter, one of Jim's roommates. She and her friend left to find Peter or get some drinks or something, after we'd been talking to them for a couple of minutes.

At some point a while later, Alex and I were standing at the top of the stairs, away from much of the noise and people, when Ann and her friend showed up again. I was sort of surprised, because I thought she'd pegged us (read: Alex) as a couple of obnoxious losers during our previous meeting. This is the point at which we learned Ann was a lawyer and her friend took ultrasounds of prostates. Alex mentioned that his girlfriend was in medical school and I thought he and the Ultrasound Woman were going to end up talking about medical procedures for the rest of the night. Pretty soon, Ann's friend wandered away, but she stayed and continued to talk to Alex and I.

At some point, Alex ran out of beer and went out back to get more. Immediately, Ann stepped to within about 6 inches of me and said "So, Scott, what's the deal? How committed is he to his girlfriend?". This shocked me for 3 reasons: 1) I was surprised she remembered my name; she'd forgotten it earlier in the evening, 2) I thought she thought Alex was a yutz, and 3) I wasn't expecting her to invade my personal space. Anyway, I said, "He's *very* committed to his girlfriend." Not being one to take "No" for an answer, she said "Well, some people are more committed than others." I responded with "He is *very* committed. They call each other every day and talk for *hours*."

I started to tell her they were better at the long-distance releationship-thing than any other couple I'd known, but Alex was back from the keg and so our conversation ended abruptly. At this point, our evening began to enter the Twilight Zone... Alex's friend Drew, a guy who's a quarter German, a quarter Irish, a Quarter Scottish, a quarter French, a quarter Finish, as well as Italian and Cherokee Indian showed up to tell us his brother is getting out of Juvie in a couple of months and his 14 year-old sister is pregnant. He also claimed to have been the only white kid living in Compton, CA. for a while, but survived because he was so naive. In case you're wondering, he plans to work in the Oracle Data Center on Saturdays and Sundays while Oracle pays for him to get a BA & MBA at Stanford. He's also going to learn either Chinese or Japanese and then go into consulting with American companies trying to break into Far East markets. He plans to make Big Bucks doing it...

Meanwhile, Ann is still hanging around talking to Alex. Alex was in rare form that night. Doing everything from Beavis imitations to throwing out bullshit that I knew he didn't really believe. I knew he was kidding, but I'm not sure if Ann did. I was laughing my head off, because I couldn't believe some of the things Alex had the never to say, *and* because Ann seemed torn between wanting him and being offended. I think she eventually figured out that he was pulling her leg, but I don't remember how long it took.

Anyway, the best scene of the night came when Alex mentioned that he and I had brought gag gifts, like Jim's invitation suggested. It turned out that Ann and her friend had also brought gifts, though they weren't exactly gag gifts. Somebody, I think Ann, brought up the idea that the four of us should exchange gifts since it didn't seem like anyone else at the party had paid attention to the invitation. I was sort of embarassed at having brought a box full of rubber animals (King Kong, Godzilla, a cobra, and a crocodile), so I tried to avoid the whole thing. Alex, perhaps picking up on my hint, said something like "Well, you probably don't want the stuff that we brought." Ann said something like "Well, you never know." Then Alex, who claimed after the fact that he knew exactly what was going on, said "So, tell me what you *really* want!" At that point, I nearly wet my pants I was laughing so hard, since I *knew* what she really wanted. She gave me a dirty look and then appeared to be contemplating telling Alex what she was really thinking ("You. Naked. My bedroom."). Apparently she thought better of it, because she gave some innane answer.

I managed to pull myself together and went off to empty my bladder. I was also parched so I grabbed a glass of water from the kitchen. When I found Ann and Alex again, they were sitting next to each other on a couch near the Christmas tree looking at the present Alex had thoughtfully wrapped in a brown paper bag. I was getting tired by this point and was slightly wierded-out by having a strange woman in my face asking me if Alex would like to cheat on his girlfriend, so I told Alex that it was "past my bedtime". He didn't appear to take the hint, so I wandered off to the den to sit by the fire. I talked to several people, who I don't remember, before Drew showed up to entertain me with his interesting interpretation of reality.

At this point the evening was winding down, for us at least. It was about 1:00AM and the party was still going strong. I heard some guy talking about rock climbing in Yosemite and was going to go talk to him when I noticed Ann and Alex in the kitchen. Thinking that escape might be possible I went over to join them. After a short time, it was agreed that we'd walk Ann and her friend to their car, exchange gifts, and then split. It may have been at this point that Ann visited the ladies room and Alex and I agreed that we should compare notes on the evening at some point.

It was freezing-ass cold outside. My teeth were chattering as we walked them to Ann's car which was, by the way, an almost-new Toyota MR2. I was entering the early stages of hypothermia as we exchanged gifts. Alex gave Ann a Koosh sling shot-thing and an Authentic Slinky(TM). She gave him a clear bar of soap that had a plastic fish in it or something. I got a $10 gift certificate for See's Candy (the perfect diabetic present) and Ann's friend got the box of rubber animals. I'll have to say this for her friend, she was either the world's best actress or she really did enjoy the rubber monsters. We said our goodbyes and then headed for the car. I felt sort of bad about the candy; it's not something I can use and I feel bad that she spent the money on it. Unfortunately, the path of least resistance seemed to be to take the gift and beat a hasty retreat.

Once in the car, Alex and I exchanged notes. I told him about how Ann had been grilling me about his girlfriend. He told me two things, one of which shocked the Hell out of me. He told me that while they were sitting on the couch and Ann was fondling Alex's paper bag, he kept asking her what she *really* wanted for a Christmas present. Eventually, she told him "What'd I'd really like is your phone number", to which he replied, "Well, I'm flattered, but I don't think my girlfriend would like it." So far, so good, my mental stability was still in tact. Up to this point, I have to admit that I was a little jealous. We show up at this party, meet this woman out of the blue, and she's all over him. From watching her, I'm guessing that if he'd said "Let's fuck!" her answer would have been "Your place or mine?" rather than a slap in the face...

Then he tells me "Dude, here's the best part! She wanted me to guess her age, so I said 28". I said, "Well, I'd have guessed 30 to 32", but I figured he was probably right to guess low, because women get pissed if you think they're older than they really are. Then Alex says, "No way, dude! She said 'You're off by 11 years and I'm *not* 17'. Dude, she was ***39***!"

I don't know, I guess her age really shouldn't have anything to do with my perception of events, but knowing that she was almost 40 sort of freaked me out. It probably says something about my sheltered upbringing in white, suburban, middle-class America.

Anyway, draw your own conclusions. I'm planning to drag Alex back to Trump's next Christmas, when "The Big Four-Oh" will take on an entirely different meaning than usual... :-)

-- Scott


ameyer@verity.com
Fri Jun 9 09:26:49 1995