Some time in the early 70's...
It's Noon on Christmas Eve, the word goes out that at three we're having a little Christmas Cheer at the hotel across the parking lot from the radio station, that perks everybody up, free drinks for everybody, except for the guy in the newsroom and the poor bastards on the air!
The entire staff runs across the lot at three sharp and settles in for the free stuff, snacks, drinks all on the house. Everybody is there, from the owner's ancient private secretary to a couple of the geeky engineers.
By 5 things are really rolling, the General Manager of the hotel tries to close the bar at 5 so his people could go home, we all shout "Hell no, we won't go!" He relents, puts a dozen bottles of booze up on the bar, locks the rest up, takes the coin box out of the juke box so it will play for free. He locks the door, on the way out he tells his pal, our sales manager, don't let anyone in and make sure the door is locked when you leave. The party roars on. A few of the staff ladies are dancing on the bar by 7, I danced with the owners ancient secretary, ever been ground on the dance floor by a woman the same age as your grandmother?
A few hotel guests, lonely guys, stare through the glass in the locked door and then wander off to do whatever guys stuck in hotels do on Christmas Eve.
I look at my watch, "Shit it's almost 8, I said I'd be home by 5:30!" I find George, he's riding with me, I pull him out and we slip and slide across the parking lot back to the station and get in the car, just as I'm pulling out of the parking lot, Geo says, "Shit, I left my wife's present in my office!" he goes in and gets a microwave oven, all wrapped up for Christmas. I stick it in the trunk and we head out on the slippery, icy streets. The only reason we are both alive today is I grew up driving on that kind of shit and there was zero traffic on Christmas Eve.
We get to Geo's house, it's sleeting and his driveway is slick. I unlock the trunk and Geo gets the microwave, he slips backwards and the oven goes in the air, it revolves in slow motion about six times and crashes to the hard concrete. The Christmas wrapping looks like shit, Geo says "Merry Christmas Baaaabeee" picks up the microwave and stumbles in the house and I head home.
When I get home, I'm greeted by a very pissed off wife, my daughters are on the verge of tears, my mother is more angry than my wife, my high school brother and sister are smirking and my father pushes through the crowd standing in the hall and says, "ROBERT YOU"RE AN ASSHOLE!"
I spent the balance of the evening with glazed eyes, being ignored by everyone other than my father who spends the next three hours giving dirty looks. Geo had gone straight to bed when he got home and his younger brother who'd flown in from Winnipeg for Christmas spent all night putting Geo's kids toys together.
We both were in deep trouble for the balance of the year for all the right reasons, too.
Merry merry Christmas, bayyyy-beeee!
ReplyDeleteAlmost tops the Thunderbird Christmas. Almost.
ReplyDeleteWouldn't have changed anything about that afternoon and night Bobby even if I could. Oh what a night.
ReplyDeleteSo, I missed that party, meaning I was the guy in the newsroom! Unless it was one of the years when I was on the morning shift, but in that case I would have been around in the early afternoon...and would have participated. May have been working the "holiday shift" as Palmer would have taken vacation time.
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