Friday night I went to a Christmas party. It was downtown, in the heart of homeless Memphrica. We were dressed to the nines, whatever the hell that means, and walking from the parking garage to the Gibson Guitar Factory, where the party was being held.
Homeless addict approaches me and My Wife as we reach the stairs to enter the Guitar Factory.
"Sir, before you spit on me, could you give me 11 cents?"
"11 cents? I don't have 11 cents. In fact, as you can see I'm in a suit, I have no cash of any kind beyond plastic. Do you take Visa?"
He was not amused and stormed off before the Gibson Guitar Police could reach the bottom of the stairs and Taser him with their guitar-shaped Taser guns.
Well, OK, they weren't REALLY guitar-shaped Taser guns, but how cool would that have been?
Anyway, I truly didn't have 11 cents to give him and unless he could process my credit card, he was out of luck. Anyway, I give enough money to the homeless shelter, just a few blocks north of where we were, to provide him with all the food he could need and a place to sleep. But I have discovered through various and many confrontations with the Memphrican Homeless, that they are less than appreciative of my donations to the shelter and can sometimes get quite violent in response to being informed of my altruistic generosity.
Have you ever read Ann Rand's definition of altruism? All those super-rich 'social justice' fuckers sure do hate her.
I once found myself standing outside the restaurant, Texas de Brazil, shouting to a fine Memphrican Homeless gentleman, who seemed intent upon violently accosting me after being told I gave the money he wanted from me to The Memphrican Union Mission, that I was going to put my foot up his ass and send him over the goalposts in the nearby FedEx forum. I have no idea where that threat came from. I have never before told someone that I was going to put my foot up their ass. It just spontaneously popped out of my mouth. Apparently it was a good threat, though, as he ceased his attack and ran away before I could finish stretching and warming up for my upcoming field goal try.
But that was some time ago and I have not attempted to kick a field goal in quite some time.
The Gibson Guitar Factory has a big display of fine guitars. Oddly, I didn't see a single SG model in the entire place. The only Gibson guitar I ever owned was a black SG-1 model, very similar to the one played by a certain Australian boy in a band called AC/DC, and one of their most popular models of all time. It was a fantastic guitar, totally different than my others, with super clean action.
In the center of the building was a huge room filled with tables and a stage. I ended up sitting with only a few of my coworkers, as the table containing the majority of my closest coworkers filled up just before I got there. Argh!
The band that played was called "The Plaintiffs", and they were good. Unfortunately, they were also either confused about what to play for a company with such a wide range of ages, or else they had an odd fascination with KC and the Sunshine Band. Late '70s disco-era music was the speciality of the night, and I was not amused.
Shake, shake, shake - yeah, shake, shake, shake - shake your bootay - shake your AAAAAAAUUUUGGGHHH!!!!!
5 white boys singing Michael Jackon's "Billy Jean" was similarly not my cup of tea. But again, I will grant that they were good at what they do. They sounded just like the original song. It wasn't their talent that I questioned. It was just the musical selections.
I met the band members as we were leaving. They were outside, taking a break and discussing how annoying it was that no one in our company would take to the dance floor, while looking through the display glass at all of the beautiful guitars hanging up inside there. I told them I wanted to get inside and run away with as many guitars as I could carry. They laughed. And I left.
One of my coworkers reported that he and his wife were chased by a man as they left the Guitar Factory, and his wife was so terrified that she was reduced to tears for the rest of the night. Welcome to Memphis. Gun permits require a 2 day course and about 6 weeks for processing of your application.
Saturday night was another work-related Christmas party. No band, but someone "elfed" the company partners and showed the results on a big display screen to the entire company as the highlight of the night. It was hilarious, especially since one of the elf bodies is clearly a woman, and all of the partners are men.
This party was at a nice country club. In every room, someone was having a Christmas party. Some were noisier than others, but everyone was richer than me.
As we were leaving, a high school Christmas party group was entering. I suddenly found myself surrounded by an army of gorgeous teenaged girls and several very nervous teenaged boys. Looking at the girls they had entered with, I understood why they were so nervous. Victoria's Secret could have come in there and picked up a whole new crew of models. Good God almighty!
Sunday was ANOTHER Christmas party. The entire neighborhood was getting together in one house. We were 2 1/2 hours late. I'm afraid we missed some of our neighbors, whom I really want to meet. But we did manage to meet most of them. I'm pleased to say that there appears to be no losers among our neighbors. Everyone is some sort of upper management super duper of some sort.
This means, of course, that I'm the neighborhood loser, as I am not upper management, but merely a modest and lowly Computer Loser whom they apparently know as "the guy who likes to work on cars."
My parade of old Chevies clearly did not go unnoticed as we were moving in. I expect a number of other things probably also did not go unnoticed, but so far no one has mentioned any of that stuff, such as my habit of cursing loudly and creatively while working on said old Chevies, or my cat that poops in the neighbor's yard (she's a Human Resources executive), or how old and faded my wife's car has suddenly become in the past year, or those God-awful ugly clown shoes that she wore to the party despite my begging her to PLEASE buy some decent-looking shoes. I noticed that our most beautiful neighbor, Ashley, was wearing the EXACT same pair of shoes I begged My Wife to at least try on while we were at the store and she was already trying on shoes - really ugly shoes. But she refused.
My neighbors all have nice houses. I was really impressed with the inside of the house where the party was being held. It was so neat and clean and organized that it made our house look like a garage. But then, we have just moved in and are still unpacking, so I can't complain. We have one neighbor with high energy and 7 kids. Everyone comments on how many kids they have, but they seem very happy, so I figure who better to have so many kids than such happy energetic people?
Anyway, we got no rest and nothing done this weekend. I didn't even go running like I'd planned. But we did attend a lot of parties. And now we're both dead tired on Monday.
