glory days

DM and i had date night this past weekend. it had been a while. we really had fun. there weren't any good movies so we just ate and drank and ate (o.m.g. coolhaus snickerdoodle and sea salt caramel ice cream sandwich. worth every penny. (all 400 of them). i hate to be unfaithful to my old friend It's-It, but when i die, please cryogenically preserve my body inside one of these babies.) we talked like real human grown ups. and got home at 9:45 like a couple of grandparents, which is totally my m.o.

by the way, if you're wondering exactly how old... i am "sustains debilitating physical injuries during sex" years old.

anyway. while we were out, we had a couple of drinks at one of our favorite local bars, The Saloon in encinitas. it's been there forever. it's a pre-hipster dive. or, it was. my girlfriends and i used to go sometimes in college because one of our professors worked there. i once went in there pregnant and sober at like 11am and i was completely astounded by the smell. i would not recommend entering the premises with a BAC lower than .04.

it was still really early and there weren't many people in the bar until a huge crew came in wearing matching custom-printed raglan sleeve sport shirts. they were definitely from one of those kickball clubs or something. they were doing pub golf. you know who i'm talking about:

after approximately 37 seconds the bartender told them to chill the f*ck out or else they were going to have to leave. about 3 minutes later he yelled at them again because some dude was doing push ups on the ground. the guy's defense was, "hey, man, i'm wearing my flip flops on my hands!" like he expected the bartender so say, "oh, well then, by all means, carry on, sir!" i have to give it to drunk dude for his innate sense of self preservation because, having experienced the filth of that bar stone cold sober, you could not pay me enough money to touch the floor with my bare hands. i can only hope and pray that alcohol kills all infectious diseases on the glassware.

after that incident, one buddy asks drunk push-up guy "what the f*ck, dude?" and he replies "extra points!" (obviously) and another friend starts hollering, "THAT'S NOT IN THE RULES, BRO!"  in case you can't tell, these kids were shit-canned. the saloon was only their 3rd bar of 18 according to the score sheets on the back of their fancy shirts, but they apparently had 4 drinks at the first bar. someone seriously miscalculated. do the math, guys! death by pub golf wouldn't be my choice.

anyway, i am telling you this story just to point out one of the major differences between my husband and myself. i see this crew and i'm thinking, thank-f*cking-god i'm not 22. and he's thinking, "oh, to be 22 again..." *nostalgic sigh.*

DM is Mr. Down for Whatever (and i do mean whatever. except pedicures. he would not get a pedicure upon penalty of death.) and he thinks i'm sort of a party pooper. i personally prefer the term "adult," but i suppose the two could be used interchangeably. one of my stepdad's favorite quotes was "grown ups have to see everything all boring and humdrum so they can stay calm enough to go to work and stuff." (i'm paraphrasing. i've never been able to remember or track down the source.)

my best friends are super duper fun, too. our "nickname" is actually "who's more fun than us?!" ("wmftu" for short, natch. what can i say, it sounded like a good idea when we were 22... and it stuck ;)) they can still party like rockstars, or, as i like to say, rockstars who get drunk and talk about their kids and tear their menisci on the dance floor. but rockstars nonetheless. the last baby shower we had involved verdrunken, upside-down twerking on a trolley that was careening through the streets of san francisco, yelling to passerby, "THIS AIN'T NO BACHELORETTE PARTY! THIS IS A BABY SHOWER, BITCHES!!!" ... at 11am.

but if you ask "who's more fun than me?" the answer is "quite a lot of people, actually." DM always jokes about how such a square ended up with these wild friends and him as a husband. what can i say? i ams who i ams. i don't like being loud. i don't like being the center of attention. i don't like turning heads. i don't like being in the group that everyone notices in public. i do love me a good costume/theme party, but there's a time and a place, and The Saloon is not it. whereas DM would probably do this every friday night if he could. and WMFTU would kill it at pub golf, at least until they got kicked out of the bar. but i would be the person that would bring a fanny pack of Band-Aids and Neosporin and Alka Seltzer. who'd be shushing my buddies and exchanging apologetic glances with the bartender. i'm the designated hair-holder and negotiator with figures of authority.

one of DM's biggest complaints about me is that i am impervious to peer pressure. (okay this is not entirely true. pinterest is my Achilles heel. but i'm talking about the kind of peer pressure that will make you chug beer from the business end of a Dong Bong, or wear golf outfits on a pub crawl and do push ups on the floor of The Saloon.) if i want to do something, i will. if i don't, i won't.

i'm thankful for my sassy friends and my husband who refuses to grow up. if it weren't for them, i'd probably never leave the house. they keep me as young and as fun as i could ever be. but, all i'd want to keep from my 22 year old life is that smooth, wrinkle-free skin, the taut, tan tummy, and that nubile, fat-free ass. she can keep her bravado and her insecurities. her ortho-tri-cyclen that plays her hormones like some shitty metal cover band. her inability to afford high quality jeans, underpants, and alcohol. and you know what? i should take her body, because she sure as hell didn't appreciate it!!

this is sort of tangential, but i always say to DM that i don't want our kids to peak in high school. it reminds me of that quote from Almost Famous -

Lester Bangs: What, are you like the star of your school?
William Miller: They hate me.
Lester Bangs: You'll meet them all again on their long journey to the middle.

college is the time to find your cool. but you can't really peak there, either. you can think you're peaking. that's fine. that's normal. as you might remember, i thought i was god's gift from about age 16 on. but it's like the whole "the more you know, the more you realize you don't know" thing. when you stop trying so hard to be cool, you can finally just be cool. or, in my case, be cool with your uncool-ness. and it feels nice to be in that place. i have no desire to retrace any of the steps i've taken thus far in my journey. sally forth! tally ho!

so, which camp do you fall in? when you see a passel of pub golf patrons in knee high argyle... do you wistfully sigh and wish you could join them? or would you prefer to enjoy your grown up drink and the free entertainment from the far side of the bar?

now THIS guy. i would do pub golf with this guy ALLLLL day.
add him to the grandpa collection, STAT.