Impress me
My cash flow would never ever end.
Gwen Stefani, "Rich Girl"
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Let me set the stage. There were two parties going on last Saturday night. I could only go to one, so I opted to go to the one that started later and would have more people my age there. Fair enough; I did call ahead to the other party respectfully declining.
Pete (my usual driver) picks me up in Westlake. In my duffel bag are a change of clothes, toothbrush, toothpaste, a 1996 Dom Perignon and a 1998 Veuve Cliquot. I mean, if you're going to party, party well. Normally one who overdresses, I just have a normal jacket and jeans. In fact, someone else at the party ended up going suit and a butterfly collar who looked lost all night. Me, I played DJ only once when I queued up "Rump Shaker" on iTunes. More on this later.
I'm not allowed to be gone from my house for more than 3 days. Those are my probation terms. They want to make sure that if they want to find me, they can. But I've been spending a lot of weekends away from home, and I use it as an opportunity to drink at an Away Game, though I do party in fear of a police raid.
The party started of slowly; I began by playing darts in the backyard, but once critical mass was attained, the party was in full swing. As expected, lots of post-college-age kids there, and while Jason was a bit of an elder statesman, he saved the party despite my best efforts.
When I arrived, I wanted a proper champagne chiller, so I took a bucket, rinsed it out, and took all the ice from the freezer and created a makeshift chiller for my Dom and Veuve.
Me: "Um, Stanley?"
Stanley: "Yeah?"
Me: "You're out of ice."
Disaster was averted when I called Jason, who had not yet arrived, to pick up bags of ice and a bottle of vermouth (so that some partygoers could make martinis). I felt infinitely grateful at that point, though that might have just been the Hpnotiq talking. I popped open the Dom, and in pouring one, found a bit of the foil floating in the flute. Upon bringing it to my attention, I promptly tossed out the contents, which was promptly met with a chorus of "What the hell are you doing?" You're talking to a guy who poured a bottle of Cristal on his head; I am not about to give a fuck about a half-flute-full of inferior champagne.
Incidentally, I only bought those bottles because Westlake failed to produce any Cristal. So instead I bought two bottles that were each a third of the price, so despite my decadence, I still consider myself to have saved 33% on the evening. I guess the cost of having Pete drive me offsets that, but that was a necessary price to pay.
With the party now in full effect, and me with my sated conscience and almost sated thirst, I proceeded to just relax and dance. Fun times. It was going well until someone (not me) spilled a drink on Stan's laptop, killing the only source of music (Stan did get a CD player out and the music was able to continue, but at that point, the dance floor was sufficiently deflated). I took the blame at first, but the real guilty party stepped up and took responsibility.
But I did manage to get "Rump Shaker" played before the dancefloor emptied, so afterwards I decided to just hang back with Jason. He pulled out a cigar, a practice freebie one from a package of cigars he bought. He and I began to smoke it when the smoking-hottest girl at the party comes up to us. I immediately hide the cigar behind my back while the four of us (me, Jason, Stanley, and S.H.G.) chilled. There was a bit of unintentional comedy when overdressed guy in suit comes by and S.H.G. asks to get a picture of her with the boys... and hands it to him so that he can be the one taking the picture!
