It's all Mike's fault

I feel like crap today. It’s not just me, at least 3 other people also feel like crap. I know exactly where to place the blame, it’s all Michael Jackson’s fault.

One evening last week while we were eating dinner I told our younger daughter, Abby, that if she didn’t eat her meat she wouldn’t get desert. That lead me to quote Pink Floyd’s song The Wall, informing her that she wouldn’t have any pudding if she doesn’t eat her meat. This brought on some curious looks and eye rolling from the kids, so I explained my Pink Floyd reference. After dinner, I fired up YouTube so they could see what I was talking about. That led me to show them other songs from my youth, namely some of Michael Jackson’s hits off the Thriller album. I also found a video of Jackson doing the moonwalk. Mady and Abby were enthralled by it, and I mentioned that our friend TJ knows how to do the moonwalk. That immediately led to inquiries about when could we invite him over so he could teach them. We contacted them and made plans to have dinner last night.

The invite list started ballooning from there. My wife’s cousin, Bud, is good friends with TJ. Bud and his family live in about 2 hours away, but we thought he might want to come over. Then our friends from down the street mentioned that we haven’t hung out in awhile. We figured the more the merrier, so we invited them also. Here’s how our invite list breaks down:

Bud and Megan: Bud is my wife’s cousin, Megan is his wife. We have a close family connection with them. They brought their 3 yr old daughter, Emilia.

TJ and Kim: TJ is one of Bud’s best friends, and has vicariously become one of our best friends. Kim is his wife, they are newlyweds. Little know fact-the name TJ is Old English and means “arms like an alligator.”

Monica and Jim: Longtime friends, they live a block from us and Sarah provides daycare for them. I used to work for Monica and she’s the meanest boss ever. They brought their girls Taylor (7) and Ashley (4).

With the invite list as it stood, a few thoughts went through my head. Whenever Bud and TJ are in the same place you can count of several things happening. First, there will be a wrestling match. Don’t ask me why, as I’ve never felt compelled to wrestle any of my friends. Second, there will be a sports related argument. Here is my interpretation of the ground rules for the debate:

1. Whoever talks loudest has the upper hand.

2. It is important to quote statistics, but it’s not important for them to be correct.

3. If you feel like you’re losing, start wrestling.

The last thing you can count on with Bud and TJ is heavy drinking. And the more alcohol consumed, the number of arguments and wrestling matches increase exponentially.

Guests arrived at about 5, so that’s when the drinking commenced. The men sat in the family room watching football while the women sat around the kitchen table. Not long after dinner, the first wrestling match of the evening broke out. I didn’t witness (it can be a bit disturbing), but apparently the kids were involved. They ganged up on Bud and TJ and loudly claimed victory afterwards. The kids are quick studies.

We ran out of beer by about 9, so the women went on a beer run. They hadn’t been drinking much if at all, and the men were so that was probably a good move. They came back with 40s: Old English 800 for Bud and TJ and Miller Lite for Jim and me. They also bought another case and some random girly drinks.

The sport argument centered around the New England Patriots and whether or not they cheated by video taping signals. At this point Bud claimed the video looked like the Zapooter film. I not-so-gently corrected him, saying it was Zapruder. We also debated the merits of the Iowa football team this year and if they could have hung with Alabama (I was right again, I think the Hawks could have given them a helluva game).

After watching Arizona destroy Carolina, the women talked us into playing Catchphrase. They probably thought they would have a chance at beating us, since the men were all pretty wasted. They were right, they did beat us. But we were louder, so we got that going for us. We probably should have turned it into a wrestling match.

The party broke up sometime between midnight and 1. Bud, Megan, Sarah, and myself stayed up awhile longer as I like to sober up a bit before calling it a night. Not that it did me much good, I woke up with a raging hangover. As did Bud, and probably TJ and Jim. And TJ never did teach the girls how to moonwalk, so we’ll probably have to get drunk again sometime.