The school that I teach at won our first state championship in boys' basketball this year. After the game, a friend and I went our for a beer in an area of Denver that 10 years ago you would have just avoided to celebrate and chat. Apparently, there was a big St. Patrick's Day celebration going on in this area. Everyone was wearing green, shirts proclaiming dubious Irish heritage, shamrock necklaces, and the glazed over eyes of the daytime drunk.
As we left to drive back to our suburban homes I saw each of the following:
1) A man eating a piece of pizza. Not so much a notable event, right? All I can say is you haven't seen this guy try to eat a piece of pizza. He was so drunk he couldn't quite bring the pizza to his mouth in the conventional way. His solution: bring his mouth to the pizza. Except that didn't work either. The pizza drooped away. By the time he actually made contact, let's just say he had expunged a good deal of his innate human dignity.
2) A guy wearing a kilt running through an intersection tripped, fell, and ate pavement. I don't mean to be pedantic here, but the guy wasn't even wearing an Irish kilt; it was clearly the Scottish variety. Come to think of it, I doubt the guy was actually Scottish either. It's almost like he was just in this for the booze and not to celebrate his heritage! Anyway, he tried to make it through the orange flashing-hand signal and promptly tripped. Legs akimbo, Scottish kilt riding higher than anyone wanted.
3) As we drove down 20th street past Coors Field on our way to I-25 and the safety of our conventional homes, we were stopped at a stoplight next to a car full of returning revelers. They all looked rather worse for the wear, but the award for most dismal drunk face went to the girl in the back driver's side seat. She was slumped against the window, her face cradled in her hand, her eyes vacant. Such a great time. Can't wait till next year. St. Patty's Day!!!
I do not say all of this to make fun of drunk people on a Saturday afternoon (thought it must be pointed out that we saw all of this before the traditional 5 o'clock hour, and I am making fun of them). While my friend and I nursed our beer and talked life, I asked him if he ever missed his pre-child existence. We talked about that for awhile and decided that while parenting young kids doesn't always stack up well against a friend's trip to southeast Asia in the social media battles we are both actually as happy as we've ever been. We have wives who love us and who we get to see naked and sleep with every night; we have children who adore us and just want to hang out and read and play; we have jobs that provide satisfaction and we have enough on the line to work hard and try to make a living at what we do. All in all, a pretty satisfying existence.
And then we left to drive home and saw three case studies of people "living it up." The shockingly decorum-free pizza eating, the embarrassing trips in the middle of a crosswalk, and the drive of death on the way home from a drunken binge never quite show up on social media. We only see the moment three hours before, a drink or two in, when people feel liberated and happy and like this is all going to be so great, you guys, let's take a picture to remember it forever.
But I went home, sober and happy, kissed my wife and babies, read some books, did some cuddling, said prayers and sang a hymn, got more kisses, bid the children goodnight and sat with my wife in awe of the life we've been given. None of it made it onto Facebook, but that doesn't mean it didn't happen.
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