Wrist Restraints and Boris Karloff

"How do you feel at the end of the day? Are you sad because you’re on your own? No, I get by with a little help from my friends" The Beatles from "A Little Help From My Friends"

As I lay shackled to my hospital bed by bulky leather wrist restrains counting the holes in the ceiling panel the nurse brings me my daily does of pharmacuetical normalcy in an "Arby’s self server ketchup sized" Dixie cup. Dear Sweet Woman! She leans over me pouring the chalk covered pills into my waiting oral cavity and asks why I never have visitors. I want to shout "Because this is all in my head, you nit wit" but the pills have already started taking effect. All I can do is drift away thinking about my friends.

We used to host this annual event we dubiously called "The Grinch Party". Every year round Christmas time we would frantically muster our holiday crew like the fucking Avengers. "Grinchers Assemble!" And like they were trying to board the last train leaving Auschwitz (What? Too soon?) they would cram into whatever domicle we had procurred. Booze would be consumed at frat party levels. Bottle after bottle of Mexico’s finest and/or cheapest tequilla would be shot, beers from far away lands with buxom strumpets on the labels would be imbibed leaving only a green glass mountain to be dealt with the next hungover morning. Cigars that smelled of Havana in June were usually on hand and it always involved a group screening of the Dr. Suess masterpiece "How The Grinch Stole Christmas" as narrarated by Boris Karloff.

It was a tradition that was more meaningful to us than Phoebe Cates pollside striptease, and that means a lot to every red blooded American male. The same people would show each and every year, usually being the only time I any contact with them. But somehow they all felt like family. Drunk Uncle’s that would embarrass themselves with Swiss watch precision. Tea toadling Aunt’s that would dispense romantic advice as if they were Dear Abbey. Cousins that, when enough alcohol was gulped, were so arousing that genetics be damned, you had to have it. Kind. Loving. Hammered. Good people. Trying to think back, I realize that most of the misadventures have been lost in alcohol related black-outs, but there was always a feeling, for days after the party, that a good time was had by all.

What kind of traditions do you share with your friends? What’s the one party you will never forget?
Dixie Cup of Love: Red Dawn.
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