I am not a practical woman. Ask my sister Emily. Her and I are barely a year apart in age and sometimes I think that God put all the possible personality traits and qualities into a big ball and cut it in half. Emily got one side, and I got the other. We are polar opposites. You would think this would mean that we couldn't stand each other, but by some miracle we actually find each other amusing more often than annoying. Her analytical nature makes me giggle when she is trying to find her way through any kind of emotional situation and she rolls her eyes every time I try and explain that I made some decision because 'it felt right.' If Emily would have been the one to get divorced, she would have done it much better than me. She would have prepared for any eventual outcome and had a safety net in place. And when it fell apart, she would have stood up and walked away and got on with her life. Even though I handled it exactly the opposite, she stood by me and tried to steer me in as practical a direction as she possibly could. When that failed, she just joined me in my emotional roller coaster - even though it was way out of her comfort zone - but her company as I lived it up all summer was invaluable. Very few people will not only let you make your own bad decisions, but will join in, even though they know it is the wrong path to take - just so you don't need to go wrong alone. She is priceless. (LOVE YOU!!) In this process, we made a few really great memories that we will never, ever share with our children and that my mom (mom, if you are reading...stop!) should probably not see.
My favorite drinking story of all time with Emily is the night we met Brandon. Brandon is one of my best guy friends and we met him at the bar through mutual friends. Specifically, a mutual friend that we are going to call....Lucky. Lucky was a friend of my ex-husbands that I knew - that, frankly, I was trying to seduce as revenge on my cheating rat bastard ex husband. (Yes, I am aware this was not the best idea in retrospect...but at the time, remember I was making decisions on emotion and Jack Daniels) So Lucky and I, and Brandon and Emily, plus a motley crew of their other friends were dancing it up at the bar a little before last call when Emily got sick. In the middle of the bar. Now, I know it is my job to take care of her, but at the time I was annoyed because how was I going to continue my planned seduction of Lucky with a pukey sister in tow? Solution: Brandon. He offered to take Emily back to my house while I went with the other four guys to Taco Bell. Looking back it is funny, and a little frightening, that I handed my house keys and my incapacitated sister off to a stranger so I could go to a restaurant where I don't even eat anything on the menu and blow in Lucky's ear. (Yes, I am anti-taco) Thankfully Brandon was a stand up guy. During the drive home, Emily apparently had to throw up so Brandon pulled over to a curb and Emily proceeded to open her truck door to lean out - which sounds smart ...EXCEPT...she was still buckled in and she fell out, hanging in mid-air, suspending upside down by her belt. Brandon had to put the truck in park, run around to the passenger side, and lift her back in the truck. So funny! Eventually, I did come home and found Emily sprawled out on the sofa with her head in Brandon's lap and a puke bowl on the floor next to them. They stayed that exact same way all night - except for the time when Emily got up to pee....but walked to my microwave and opened it thinking she was in the bathroom....ahhhh Emily...so funny. Brandon has been an adopted part of our family ever since and Emily has learned to correctly unbuckle her seat belt.
During this same summer of sinning, Emily and I hung out with this group of guys that we knew back in high school. Some nights after the bar closed we would go back to their house and continue our merriment. There was the normal amount of drunken behavior in regards to Emily and I being the only females in the party and the men decided to try and trick us into doing things we didn't want to do (think like a drunk 26 year old male and I am sure you'll get the picture. If not, you need to move onto another blog because you shouldn't be reading this type of nonsense) Their trick was to get us to play chess. Now, to be fair, I am sure that most girls at the bar are not proficient chess players...so the guys really thought they had a good thing going here when Emily and I laughed and accepted. I think we played three or four games total and trounced them every time, despite the influence of alcohol. I have a mental picture in my head that will never go away of Emily playing them on the couch with all four of them huddled around trying to jointly debate their next move, while I just lay sprawled on the floor, completely trusting in Emily's ability to thwart them. They were amazed that I put this power in her hands for this particular game and didn't want to put my two cents in, while they all were taking like ten minutes for a single move because they couldn't decide on a strategy. What they didn't know was that my dad is a fantastic chess player - and he started teaching us to play chess as soon as we were able to reason. I think both of us probably had the fundamentals of chess down before we could even read. Both Emily and I could play chess almost automatically, it was that familiar to us. I think sometimes men assume that if you are out partying at the bar that you are automatically an airhead. These guys completely underestimated our brain power, and there was nothing Emily and I liked better than getting one up on men that tried to pigeon hole us as bar girls. We win.
One more! During the summer, after the bars close down there is usually a lady or two selling flowers, trying to pressure the guys into buying them and giving them to someone. Em and I were making our way to the back parking lot of a bar where we were meeting our ride home - one of my friends who was a bouncer. So as we are walking, we get intercepted by a trio of guys and one of them gives Emily a flower and starts to hit on her. Typically I am pretty patient with this kind of thing - it is the bar after all - but, for reasons I don't remember, this night I was just annoyed with them. I vaguely recall thinking this guy was using really corny, awful pickup lines and that Emily was just drunk enough to be buying it. So I started walking her to the parking lot...strange trio of men followed, still chatting up Emily...and we made our way to my friend's truck. I jumped up on the hood of the truck, ignoring them all until Emily called out my name and they all came walking up to me. This is what she wanted: These guys had invited us to come out on their boat with them. Drunk. At 2 in the morning. With total strangers. In the water. This was a no brainer, even for me with a few drinks swirling through my system. But Emily was insistent and continued to try and persuade me with the most non compelling arguments like "oh but it is so hot out, it will feel great on the water" and "think of what a great story we can tell tomorrow about being out on the boat at night" Yeah, great story to hear when our bodies wash ashore! Luckily, right about them my friend the bouncer came out and intimidated them, sending them scurrying on their way. I was grateful. But Emily pouted in the back seat all the way home.
We continued in this vein over a summer and pretty much until the snow flew that year, doing things that I am not proud of, but that I forgive myself for. When the whiskey haze had cleared and I looked over, there was Emily..clutching an empty bottle of Captain, burning all the incriminating photos. I had survived the first six months. Emily hopped off my crazy train and went back to her normal, practical ways. I reluctantly got off my crazy train and continued on with my emotional ways. And for the most part, it has served us well.
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