Off the sauce
A guy I met at the casino the other night was being so annoying. Why do people even drink? It’s usually just like doing a speed run of making a pathetic ass of yourself. I mean, maybe you're a good guy and the drink just loosens the tongue up a little bit, but man, it has this effect on lots of people where they just become loud and insufferable and talk too much. I will, of course, acknowledge that not all people are jerks or annoying or insufferable. A lot, or maybe most people, are perfectly fine when drunk. Some fellas I know throw a few back and tell me the sweetest things and make me laugh so hard. And I’m ashamed to admit it, but there are even some people I like better when they’re drunk. But that’s not who I’m talking about. You all know who I’m talking about. I needn’t explain beyond that, I think. Once again, I think there should be some kind of psych evaluation for people to see if they’re allowed to drink or not. For example, there was another guy at the resort who, during a performance of the musical Chicago, started yelling at the dancers. I started over to go say something to him, but then I realized that I knew him. He was an aspiring actor from Los Angeles that I’d spoken to in the hot tub the day before. Apparently, he has a few speaking lines in the next season of Stranger Things, so I’ll be on the lookout for that. Anyways, as I was walking over, I realized that he wasn’t yelling at the girls dancing and singing—he was sloppily screaming the words with them. He was just too drunk, and it sounded like he was harassing the ladies. The day before, in the hot tub, he was a perfect gentleman and carried on an intriguing and polite conversation with myself and the other patrons of the hot tub. But then, in that moment, the guests of the show looked on at him in horror. They writhed in discomfort at his actions. All because of a little too much to drink. I went up to him and said hello anyways. After being caught red-handed drunkenly singing the words to the Broadway musical Chicago, in my humble opinion, it’s more than safe to say that our deviant resort attendee was a gay man. I’d made such inferences at the hot tub the day before, but now I was sure. Even with this knowledge, while he reached out to touch my lady as he was greeting her, something inside me was deeply repulsed at his drunkenness. He reached towards her clavicle to touch a necklace that she was wearing and questioned us as to the origin of the jewelry. I tried not to care, but as he did so, it was my knee-jerk reaction to pull her away from him. Because of his current state, he noticed not my abhorrence at his actions. Even with my knowledge of his apathy for the gentler sex, I couldn’t stand his touching her. Why is it that when people are sodden with drink, we give them such leniency? If someone says something entirely reprehensible, we write it off, usually because of the drinks they’ve had that night. There was a girl who I knew who would get shit-faced hammered at every party I saw her at, then go up to my cousin and accost him verbally and physically in one of the most pathetic attempts at seduction I’ve ever had the misfortune of witnessing. Then the next time she would see him, she would say, “Sorry, I was so drunk, tehe,” and just like that, she was absolved of her distasteful actions. I’m not saying this is always allowed. There will be things people will say, even when drunk, that will be over the line. But in the case of my friend from the hot tub, if someone who was sober had done that, I would imagine the consequences would have been more dramatic. I would imagine that no sober person would ever yell the words like that while people were performing. But alas, we allow such acts and forgive quickly just because they were drinking that night. I could go on and on about the situations I’ve seen and even been a part of where I let things go because people were drunk and it wasn’t worth it to bother trying to get them to stop. I will share one more instance to drive my point home here, if I haven’t already. There is a good chance that my telling of this story may reach the ears of whom it is about. If it does, I hope that it calls them down to the depths of humility where they may find God or at least a higher purpose than that of getting drunk and making a complete and total ass of themselves on the weekend. I had traveled to another city to play a rock-and-roll show with my band. While I was there, a friend of mine that I was staying with introduced me to their roommate. The roommate let me know that they heard my girlfriend was funny. I said yes, she is very funny; it’s something that I love about her. The roommate told me that she herself was very funny. I said I hope so. I told her I was looking forward to finding out just how funny she was. She then went on to tell me that she felt her and my girlfriend would be very good friends. I asked her what made her say that. She told me it would be on account of the both of them being very funny. I said that she was probably right; funny people tend to get along with funny people. She assured me that if my girlfriend was as funny as people had told her, they definitely would be friends because she herself was very funny. I said I’m sure she is. At this point in time, my patience was beginning to run a little thin. Keep in mind, also, I’m manning the merch table. Something people know if they’ve been in bands is that when running the merch table, you’re trapped in a machine of your own design. You need to sit there because you want to sell merch, but because you’re sitting there and need to stay there, if someone wants to stand and talk at you about how your girlfriend and them would be good friends on account of how funny they are, you’re entirely at their mercy. This is usually why we take it in shifts. Most of the time, I’m grateful that people want to come and chat with me. I don’t want to make it sound like I don’t enjoy the conversations I have while running the merch table, but as all of you know, I’m sure, there are some conversations you’d rather not have. Or at least cut the length down on some of them. To go back to my narrative, around the time my patience was running a bit thin, I think the roommate began to grasp that I was not interested in continuing our riveting discussion about her charming sense of humor. But she had what can be a common side effect of drunkenness, which is a short memory. She soon returned to visit me at the merch table. She came up to me with a renewed sense of urgency and told me she needed to talk to my girlfriend ASAP. I told her she would need to start driving because it was a long way back to Salt Lake. She rudely disregarded my jest and told me it would be easiest if I was to give her my lady’s number so that they could talk on the phone. I informed her I did not think that was such a good idea, seeing as my lady was taking a test at school sometime soon, and I thought it would be an unwanted interruption. The roommate explained she would text her beforehand and let her know she would be calling. I did my best to explain in a polite way that I would not be sharing the phone number with her. This discourse continued for a few more minutes until she conceded upon the idea that I would notify her after my lady had informed me she was done with the test. Later that night, when I went back to my friend’s house, I stepped outside to talk to my lady on the phone. She was in a bit of distress because, during her proctored test, her phone was ringing repeatedly. She was worried that her test would be flagged and she would be accused of cheating. I asked who it was that called her. She told me that some random girl had been calling her on Instagram. Come to find out, it was the roommate calling her over and over on Instagram so that they could talk and then commenting on her posts and direct messaging her, telling her to call her back. Am I crazy in saying that I think that’s a little over the line of socially acceptable? In my head at the moment, I decided to not worry too much because the girl had been very drunk. Then, as I reflected on the situation later, I thought maybe I should have brought it up and caused a bit of a stir about it. Why can people just do things that are completely over the line and then get away with it because they’re drunk? If someone who I hardly knew who was sober did that, I’d probably be like, holy shit, this person is a total freak. Like, clearly, they have some really weird insecurities about being funny. But then, when you think about it, whatever someone does that’s weird when they’re drunk was probably already inside them. The alcohol just pulled the inhibitions to the side and allowed what it was to climb to the surface. I think that’s why people really ought to be more careful when they drink. You’re sort of showing whatever it is you may have been hiding. In some cases, you see that people just really wanted to dance like no one was watching, or that maybe they’re over the cool guy act and they explain that the player shit is just a farce and they really want something real with a nice lady. Both of these things are usually the kind of thing that is endearing when someone is drunk, but then we have other situations where guys black out and start saying the n-word. As they say, what you keep in the dark will always find a way to the light. I’m not sure if I’m valid for this, but if you suck drunk, then I think maybe you just suck inside for real and you’re doing a good job at hiding it, and vice versa. I think I’m just going to start fully judging people when they are drunk because that’s when the secrets come out. I could be way off about all this, but maybe I’m not. I just think what you’re like when intoxicated says so much about what’s going on inside of you, what your true desires are and such. For example, the guy I was talking about at the casino at the beginning of all this. He kept harassing this female dealer we had and was being pretty insufferable. I kept telling him he should stop and that he was clearly bothering her. He would agree with me and stop for a little bit, but then, like two minutes later, start up again. Eventually, the dealer just left the table and another person came to replace her. It’s such a tricky situation because he wasn’t saying anything super over the line, just saying “mi amor” a bunch and saying he loved her. For example, if I swung on that guy, I’d probably be at fault because I guess he wasn’t really hurting anyone. But why are we, for some reason, just expected to put up with that? It’s something that has always been interesting to me. Maybe if I drank, it would change my mind. But in any case, I feel like the way that guy was talking to our female dealer when he was drunk can probably tell us a lot about what he thinks and feels about women in general. Is that crazy for me to say? If a guy is talking crazy to chicks when he is off the sauce, that has probably got to give us a peek into the inner workings of his mind, right? Because not everyone does that. A lot of people are definitely less afraid to be flirty, but that doesn’t mean that they are going to cross any lines. I just think it’s crazy that we have this special elixir we sell to anyone that may very well bring the demons out of people. Statistics say that 37 people will die from drunk driving alone every day in 2025. Who’s to say how many guys are going to beat the shit out of their wife because of the sauce? I think it’s interesting that we are down to just roll the dice with that. Like, if I handed you a glass of something and said if you drink this, you might have a great night, but there’s like a 5% chance you grope a woman and then get your ass beat, and either way, you wake up and feel like ass, and also, there’s a good chance you could puke if you drink too much, would you drink it? Maaaan, maybe I’m just being dramatic, but who’s to say?