A New Year Miracle

The only real trouble with going out by yourself on your  30th birthday/ New Year when you have every intention of drinking enough alcohol to forget that you’re going out by yourself on your 30th birthday/New Year is the awkwardness that is midnight.

Trouble with midnight is the traditional New Year kiss. You’re supposed to have a fabulous bend you over backward into the new year make out session with someone you love. And if you cannot have that it should just be a lot of confetti and horn blowing and friendship and smiles.  However…. SOME people think that you can slide into the New Year faking it with a random stranger that happens to be standing there. Or hovering around there like it’s a goddamn game of musical chairs. What? You like musical chairs? Sure you do. You’ve never considered the way the chair feels.

Of course I was already silly drunkish by ten pm so I was only half aware of the circling by eleven forty-five. Usually I’m consumed with anxiety about such a thing. I mean… their feelings and all. As if it’s my job to make them feel better about circling an empty fucking chair. I mean it would be one thing if the chair were some sort of fancy lazy boy recliner or something… but we’re talking about the cold metal deal they unfold at a church potluck here. So clearly I feel sorry for them that they’re some how confused enough to be hoping to sit in it.

I remember seeing the time on the large television and thinking I should head outside to smoke a cigarette in the very near future to avoid the horror that is the midnight make out. But then I was dancing… and the band kept changing words in the song to wish me a happy birthday so I danced some more and then before you know it everyone was counting as though a rocket was about to take off and a young man who’d been trying to teach me to swing dance an hour before snaked an arm around me and tilted my chin up and BAM.

There I was. Starting my New Year out being molested by a rubbery lipped baby marine.

Damn it.

So I held my lips together against the onslaught and pulled away and smiled and made nice and whatnot. ‘Cause that’s just what ya do.  And then I managed to locate my jacket and I went outside to smoke a cigarette. The Marine followed.

“Hey I think I locked my keys in my truck! Will you go over there and take a look with me?” He was looking across the road at the parking lot.

“Not a chance.” I continued smoking.

“What? Why not? You don‘t trust me?”  he seemed genuinely shocked. Or that was part of the routine -I’m not sure.

“Gee, I don’t know? How about ‘cause I don’t wander over into dark parking lots with strangers?”

“Stranger! You’ve known me all night! See that little white truck right there? That‘s mine.”

“Not going to happen.  But I tell ya what. I’ll stand here and watch you and if anything happens to you I’ll scream and such.”

“Oh wow.” He’s rustling his hand around in his jacket pocket. “My keys are right here.”

“It’s a New Year miracle.” 


January 1, 2010