Work Outing Causes Life Disaster

It's 9:08 am, and I have been at the office for just about 45 minutes. I've spent most of that time (and the other two hours that I've been awake) deciding whether this is going to be one of those days when I vom in the morning. This would not be the first time that's happened at work, but I really try to keep my tremendously messy mornings restricted to the weekend, so it's also not a regular occurrence. The cause of this morning's dismay: last night's work outing.

Sounds like a lot of fun, right? "Hay Staff: Let's all get together at a professional baseball game, watch the horrific home-town team get whooped, drink a few beers, eat food, bond, meet each other's spouses and children, and not pay for it!" Well bossman, I will see you there!

Actually though, an event like this is a recipe for disaster. You know it's going to be uncomfortable, so you'd prefer to experience it drunk. But you can't be noticeably drunk in front of your coworkers or your boss or the CEO (even if it is a sufficiently relaxed occasion that he's wearing the classic SigEp-style plaid shorts, bright polo, and boat shoes). So...how do you handle such a thing? Well, if you're me, you bring your perfect love interest and his hilarious friend along to ease the pain, and you consume a flask-sized bottle of bacardi essentially on your own. You also show up about an hour late and leave early, and you try, however unsuccessfully, to avoid talking to any figures of authority.

Mostly, this plan was a winner. There are enough young, interesting, socially acceptable people employeed at my place of business that outside-of-the-office functions aren't all the same small-talk conversation over and over. I kept to that group (+ perfect love interest + perfect love interest's friend), and the night was going well. But there's always someone out to ruin the children's fun, and on this night, that soul-crusher was Meeting Man, the VP who runs the meeting-planning portion of this operation. Keep in mind, please, that I have worked here for three weeks, and I basically don't know anybody in a position of authority because I hide (sometimes sleep, usually play video games) in my cube and don't make a point of being particularly friendly. Meeting Man is not my buddy and, to be honest, I was impressed that he knew my name when he walked around saying hello to everyone and requiring that we introduce him to our guests.

"Hi, ****," he said, "are you enjoying yourself?"

"Absolutely!!!!" I replied, far more excited than was necessary, considering that I had no idea whether we were winning or losing, and I was mostly gossiping and making fun of people's clothes/hairdos/boyfriends/beer choices.

"And who have you brought with you?" he queried, in a way a curious person like me might ask, right before heading back to sit with my friends and make fun of people's clothes/hairdos/boyfriends/beer choices.

"Well, Meeting Man, this is Boy 1, and this is Boy 2." And I left it at that......and I thought it would suffice.....you're welcome. But Meeting Man was befuddled, and he needed titles for clarification. Rather than asking for them though, he stood there with a puzzled look on his face. He seemed unable to decide whether the gentlemen were dating one another and I had brought them to show them that baseball pants were really designed for ladies and gay men, or whether I was dating one (or maybe both...?) of them.

At this point, I panicked. I had to assign perfect love interest a title, and I had not planned ahead! I feel like the term boyfriend is only used in the adult world by 45 year-old divorcees who live in trailers, smoke a pack of Marlboro Menthols a day, have fake fingernails from CVS, and wear midriff-bearing shirts that expose their belly button piercings and heart-shaped tramp stamps. That's not me, so boyfriend didn't seem like the right choice even though Boy 1 is, in fact, my boyfriend. Grown-ups should/do use different words for these things than 7th graders...so what was I to do?! Grown-ups are engaged or married, which we are not. Or they're dating, which seems too casual for what's going on here. Or they're lovers? Gross. Or they're seeing someone...? YES! Boy 1 and I are seeing each other! But that's not a title...EFFER!

Basically all of these things went through my brain in the space of half a second, and I came up with "Oh...um...Boy 1 is my...uh...b..bu...bu...boyfriend. Boy 2 is his friend." At this point I returned to drinking my skeezy rum and coke in a coke bottle from the Sausage Shack or whatever they call the snack bar at a baseball stadium, and Meeting Man walked away satisfied.

Perfect love interest/Boy 1 was not nearly as satisfied with my response, though. He said something to the effect of "well-played, retard," and the debauchery continued....and it continued.....and it continued....until the rum bottle was empty, the Sausage Shack cut us off, all the old people left the game, and we went back to my place to eat gross chips/chili-dip, drink more beers, pass out too late, and cause me to feel vomitrocious all day...AND still not know what title I'm supposed to attach to Perfect love interest/Boy 1. Basically: Life Disaster.

THE END.