The other night my City job had a staff party. It was part leaving party for those of us who only work there in the summer, part leaving party for a man who is moving on and part celebration of recent successes. It was the first time we have all got together after work to spend time as a group. If there is something seasonaires do a lot it is spend time together outside of work.
One particular young man at the party slightly over did the red wine and at the end of the evening it was down to me and a couple of others to escort that gentlemen to where he was spending the night, which happened to be very near to my house.
I don't know what happened to me but without thinking about it I was transformed in to 'looking after drunk people mode'. I told him that if he was sick in the car, I would be really mad. His drink addled brain couldn't quite understand why I was pre-empting vomit. What he didn't know was quite what a large number of drunk people I have dealt with in my time. I have seen them all, happy drunks, angry drunks, horny drunks, sleepy drunks, crying drunks, hungry drunks and vomiting drunks.
I have sat and watched two inebriated women eat pizza, not noticing that the entirety of the topping was sliding off the pizza, down their chins, down their front and into their laps. And then when they did notice the tomato and cheese sat on their jeans, pick it up with surprise and eat it.
I have comforted girls when they were hysterically crying wine tears (Miss P, fashion designer you know who you are). Usually over the ineptitude of the males in the species.
I have dealt with the vomit, I have been talking to a very drunk girl when she suddenly, out of the blue, vomited down herself, into her own hands, outside of a bar, at about 6pm, wiped her hands and then carried on drinking. At this point, chef laughed and told me it was a tactical chunder. This was too much, even for me to deal with.
I have had men try to come on to me, I have been picked up and carried. I have prevented women getting naked in bars and I have gone to sleep trying to block out the sounds of drunken sex. I have put people to bed. I have seen the wounds that occur when drunk people go skiing topless and fall over (ice burn is not pretty) Most of all I have listened to people talk absolute crap to me for hours on end.
I have dealt with the horrific morning after fall out. The midnight fights, the midnight feasts, the drunk off hand comments (the best one being 'I know if I don't pull, when I come back you will have sex with me', that girl was pissed off for days!) I have looked after the girls who went a bit too far with the wrong man (in the mountains most men are the wrong man). I have listened to the stories. I have done the washing after someone woke up in the middle of night and wee-ed all over his room mate's clothes and shoes. I have calmed down angry French men who were a little fed up with the nightly drunken singing. I was told all about when two people got it on in a bubble lift on Wednesday afternoon.
There was usually way too much detail involved in everyone's stories. Way too much.
I'm sure that a lot of drunken behaviour went on that I didn't know about, but gossiping is the number one activity in the mountains, and I usually heard about it one way or another.
I'm not playing the martyr, I got drunk, I did silly things, I was once so drunk I attempted to light the wrong end of a roll up and I have been known to share way too much information myself.
While out to dinner with the Rep last week we were talking about alcohol. About how our alcohol tolerance has gone right down since moving away from the mountains. And the miracles of almost hangover-less mornings. After come discussion about why hangovers just don't have the crippling effects at 1700m that the do on the ground, we concluded that, 'Well in the mountains you just get up and get on with it don't you? You can't just lie in bed feeling sorry for yourself'.
In conclusion, the recent work party was a good re-introduction to the world of the drunken staff, and he was the best behaved drunkard I have ever dealt with. I'm thinking of offering him a job.
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