Women and Children First

Lindz and I attended a birthday party last night. She had received the invitation from a former coworker whose husband was turning 40.

(listening to "St. Tropez" by Pink Floyd)

We had to backtrack a bit in our search for their house, but we found it without much difficulty. It was 6 o'clock in the evening, and the sky was rapidly darkening with the approach of what appeared to be an impressive thunderstorm. Trees wagged around, lightning snaked across the sky, but no drop of rain had yet reached us.

We parked on the street among numerous SUV's, and the sound of live music was unmistakable. I identified the song immediately as "Ain't Talkin' 'Bout Love" by Van Halen. My wife is younger than that song. We walked around the side of the house to see four clean-cut suburbanite men playing on the deck. They weren't a great cover band, but they were a hell of a lot better than most people who get together and jam in a back yard. The singer didn't have David Lee Roth's falsetto shriek (no one does, including Roth himself anymore), but it was still an interesting feeling to have returned to college life through this strange time portal. They played a Guns 'n Roses song next, and it reminded me of moving into the dorms 14 years earlier.

The rain arrived.

Several canopies were set up in the back yard, so I stood under one of them and drank my beer. I was taken aback by the amount of water pelting down. I occasionally wondered if lightning would send me to my eternal reward at any second, but I mostly enjoyed myself. Lindz dashed out from the house to join me. Water streamed off the edges of the canopies. I stood there watching the lightning whip through the glowering sky, and I reminisced about going to parties where I knew more than four people in a place where it never rains. It wasn't a gloomy reverie; I was looking at things with regard to how ridiculous they were. Standing under a metal-framed canopy in a thunderstorm at a party where I knew almost no one, watching a bunch of guys frantically moving drums and amps indoors seemed silly. I just stood there with my arm around Lindz's shoulder, soaking it all in.(not literally; I remained fairly dry).

The rain subsided, the band began to set up their kit anew, and we hit the food. It was copious and varied, and eating some of it passed the time nicely. While we were indoors, Lindz and I looked around the house with our homebuyer's eyes. Hmmm... crown molding. Ooh, I like the wicker chair in that corner. Nice chair rails. Dormers, home office. Wood floors, lots of square footage. We've turned into typical, salivating consumers, but who cares? You should see me when I enter a house with a nice kitchen. It's a pathetic, depraved display, and if someone had a 36" Viking Range, they would be mopping up the drool.

We sipped a few more beers, listened to some more Van Halen and Ozzie Osbourne tunes (Lindsey had never heard the original, non-television version of "Crazy Train"), and decided to make our goodbyes. "Oh, by the way," Andi said, "do you want some leftovers?"
"Er, yeah, sure," I replied, not wanting to seem like a mooch.
"Here. Take these hamburgers. And these hot dogs. Go ahead and bring your cooler over here..." Eight or nine beers, three unopened packages of hot dogs, an untouched peanut butter pie, and some grilled burgers went into my cooler. "Oh, and we'll never drink this wine," she continued, putting two magnums of good pinot grigio in there.
"Gosh, this is awfully neighborly of you..."
"We've got so much stuff here. Enjoy."

I lugged the cooler out to the car. A man carrying free beer and peanut butter pie is never very sad, my granpappy always used to say.