the auction post
Posted: March 13, 2006 Filed under: Uncategorized 7 Comments »Saturday was our school auction, an event I attended mostly sober last year because of the early stages of Trying To Conceive. That, my friends, was a mistake one doesn’t make twice. This year I had a few people over beforehand to get the drinking started. Then off we headed to the big event, with agreements made between all of us that we would rescue one another if we got stuck in corners with certain parents. You know the ones.
As mentioned before, Mondale was my date, since Wes is nowhere near crazy enough to accompany me to this sort of thing. To be honest, my impression of Mondale’s extracurricular life is that it is one long drunken party – he is far too busy, for example, to EVER have brunch with Wes and me. So I was not surprised when he showed up to my house LATE as hell, having gone drinking with his man-crush, Mr. Glen instead of coming to my gathering as promised. In any case, he got there.
He was a good date for the most part, except for one thing. When I sent him to get me a drink, he came back with the wrong one (vodka tonic instead of vodka and cranberry). He was unapologetic, being a beer drinker and very dismissive of anyone wanting a PINK drink.
After eating and more drinking and a bit of schmoozing and looking at the pathetic bids on the silent auction items, we headed for the live auction. Last year our borough president, this crazy uber-Brooklyn sort, was there helping to hock dinner with himself. I was hopeful, but he didn’t show. Plus bidding was low. Sadly low. At one point, a Fire Island house for 10 was up for bid and I mentioned to Mondale that we should all get together and bid on such a thing next year.
"I’m not going to bloody Fire Island."
I scowled at him. "Why? Because everyone will think you’re gay? Everyone already thinks that."
"I’m BRITISH," he bellowed and turned away in a huff as I laughed at him.
Later the auctioneer mentioned not having children (as an excuse for his inability to pronounce Pokem*n or something), and I started in. "You know, I should ask him what he DOES with himself without children. Because I really am trying to figure out what I am going to DO with myself if I don’t have children, you know, because…"
"OH MY GOD," Mondale intoned. "This is NOT bloody therapy. SHUT UP."
People should tell me this more often, if I am honest.
Mondale had a long talk with the son of an infamous Vietnam general. This is one from what I call the Conspiracy Photo series:
After this, Mondale was drunk. Drunk enough, in fact, that he danced:
And after that we were all drunk. See Mom-of-Two-Boys with listmaker here:
And then in the car of Mom-of-Two-Girls with Mondale:
We went back to the home of Mom-of-Two-Boys, where Mondale started to look… bad. Apparently the knight in shining armour was Son-of-My-Boss, who never drinks at work gatherings and who saved Mondale’s life when he was falling down the stairs. Here he is with listo.
One might suggest, perhaps, that I should have been the one saving him from killing himself on the stairs. I should have been the one, as his date, who put him into a cab. Indeed, I did fail in this respect. But I consider it payback for his not getting me a fricking pink drink when I wanted one.
Thank God that’s over for another year.
This is one of the most ridiculously fanciful, blown out of all proportion and quite utterly hilarious posts I think I have ever seen. I can (And will) justify every single action that I undertook that evening. Also, I think everything you write is true. And how come you consistently refer to my client as ‘B*****’ yet give everyone else cute little nicknames, not that any kind of anonymity is an issue here, images of the man you call ‘B*****’ are splashed all over the place. I HAD NO IDEA YOU HAD A CAMERA????
I will now apologise about the pink drink, I tried, i really did but then I got all flummoxed and thought, well, she doesn’t want beer then she must want VODKA!!!!!!!.
Fire Island, Listen dear, I (we) just dont do those big house party type things, they always end up being horrible. Frau Random Doubt and I are really much better one on one. Just trust me on this one. I was just being drunk and beligerent because you started off on fertility in the middle of the auction thingy (I wanted you to have a good time and not worry about that).
Thanks for letting me fall down the stairs, I appreciate that.
I had to hang out with Glen as I’d arrived in your neighborhood horribly early and I knew he lived just around the corner. I was at G****-S**** House just as soon as I was called. That was tardy I admit it.
I’m not always drunk, just sometimes at the weekend.
I think that’s it.
Oh, the whole gay=English thing, that’s just something you have to live with in the good old USA. But then , you have the Conservative/religion thing to contend with, I understand.
OK. You’re right on the nickname. It is fixed now. As is a similar “slip” you made not asterisk-ing MY AND WES’ NAMES.
A) You may NOW have no idea I had a camera but you actively posed for it on Saturday.
B) I have no choice but to trust you on the goodness of one-on-one time since you are just so fricking popular or else hate me and can’t even arrange a fricking cocktail, pink or not.
C) What is it with flipping MEN and their consistent weird-ass conviction that one can just NOT THINK ABOUT SOMETHING and have a good time? You sound suspiciously like my husband on this one. Look, there is barely a moment in the day when I am not thinking about this issue, and the auction, replete as it was with pregnant women, was not going to put a stop to it. I, for one, don’t understand this ability of men to simply STOP thinking about something. It is suspiciously like scary cognitive behavioral therapy crap and I believe you may all actually be robots.
Phswsh… NOT think about fertility… I mean, REALLY!
The English as pooves thing; get it all the time. Like Mondale I like a nice shirt and am no stranger to soap and water so maybe that’s where the misaprehension is born in our smellier, plaid clad American cousins.
Mondale; cheers for flying the flag in such an exemplary manner. Bludgeon your way through an evening with as much disarming charm as you can muster until the alcoholic tipping point is reached, then switch to libertine boozed up rakish country squire with tie down and collar open as soon as pos. If champagne is on hand, drink it from the bottle while cadging smokes from all and sundry.
Bri; cheers for subjecting yourself to an experience I have had so often in my life, namely a Saturday night of drinking with Mondale. Frankly, its one of my favorite things to do. Just be thankful that you didn’t end up in a Turkish kebab shop or pissing off a bridge parapet trying to hit the swans below.
Or, worse still, on the Night Bus, seated behind the man projectile vomiting bright pink curry.
Or worse than that, I suppose, being the projectile vomit person.
I was once on the tube sitting next to a projectile vomiter. After he had finished throwing up across the carriage and onto her shoes, the woman opposite him opened her purse and stoically offered him a breath mint. Ah, the English…
I once sat on the tube clutching a trashbag containing my own, urine soaked clothes.
Finally, the truth of the English experienced. It certainly isn’t as pretty as this silly American once expected. The accent, the seemingly refined manners, the intellect, blah, blah, blah. Drunks! Not just any kind of drunk – sloppy drunks. And I do believe Weasel miss typed. “Hanging out with Mondale on a Saturday night is one of my favorite things…” should have been “…was one of my favorite things.” Or should he be so quick to forget the line, “CM we are adults, Mondale and I don’t drink like that any more. Nor would we want to. Trust us.” Pshaw.