Boy's Best Moment

It's been quite a while since I posted, long enough to deserve a slap on the wrist. But on the upside, I've been keeping up pretty well with TheVicariousFoodwhore.com, which is more career-building than this, which, as I say often, is more for cathartic purposes, just to purge my mind of unpleasantness and such.

What's my excuse? Two words: Mardi Gras.

This year's Carnival festivities were really awesome. One of my closest girl friends, the first friend I made on my own in New Orleans, who ended up being one of my sorority sisters, stayed with us and brought her new boyfriend with her. Hooray for that. Friends were in from out of town, which was also fun, and for a very long weekend, I felt like I was on vacation. Double huzzah.

However, this year's Mardi Gras was still a far cry from the Mardi Gras of my college days, which was especially sad since I was with my college friends. I was the least drunk of any group I was with, considering I wasn't at all drunk during the entire weekend. Shameful. However, I was determined to make this Mardi Gras a memorable one for The Boy, since last year's was a whole lot of fun, but not as fun as it could be considering that it was basically just him and me for the season. With all these people in town, I forced him to socialize, and the fact that he'd made some friends helped, too. So when he was invited to a balcony party on Bourbon Street, he went with my blessing.

I was not to know that he was going to be returned to me a hilarious but pathetic disaster.

Parties at the Royal Sonesta tend to be pretty raucous and swank. Open bars, luxurious trappings, and high quality accommodations, from what I remember of the party I'd gone to several years back with some random Sigma Chi alumni. The Boy was good for a while, drinking, flinging beads, ogling tourist boobs (also with my blessing ... he's so tame, devoted, and generally well-behaved most of the time that it seems almost unfair to veto any non-physical contact good times that may come his way), and being the frat boy he never was. And more power to him. I wanted him to enjoy himself.

Well, enjoy himself he did. He started off on a good note, with our bartender friend fixing all the drinks. Exceptionally talented, everything she makes is light, well-mixed, and delicious. This was all good, since he knows how much he can drink and it doesn't hit like a Mack truck. Unfortunately, the drinks he makes do.

I've known him for eight long years, and in that time, I have never seen him so sloppy and utterly sloshed. He'd ridden his bike downtown with his friends (to avoid traffic and driving drunk, both of which are wise choices) and by the time he called me for a ride, he was sad and confused. When I asked where he was, he asked me to hold on, then promptly hung up.

Now I was getting ready to mock him when I got to him at this point, since I've never known him to get irresponsibly drunk. How many times have I heard his lecturing on "safety" and warnings against getting totally wasted? More times than I can count. I couldn't wait to throw this in his face. It was going to be fun.

I finally found him and our friends in the Central Business District of downtown New Orleans, after much instruction and aid of Patrick, collapsed over his bike, not even able to sit on it, and barely able to keep his eyes open. This was not nearly as funny as I thought it was going to be at the present time.

He was able to sleep it all off, though, and we had a lovely Mardi Gras day relaxing and doing random-Tuesday-off things. And through all of that, it did end up actually being laughable, with the extreme role reversal and the fact that I've never, ever known him to be so blatheringly incoherent and incapacitated. And now, I'm telling everyone. :)