Hello, Stranger

Last night, Mike and I decided to have a couple of friends over. Did I say a couple? I meant a small rager with several people I've never met in my life. We were planning on going to a body building show, but were off by an hour for the time that it started. Oops. We figured we'd have some people over after the show and just hang out for a bit. We had our kids and one of the couples was planning on bringing their daughter. That was planned for about 7:00 - 7:30-ish. At that point, there were about 8 of us, not including the kids. That lasted until about 11:00 PM (around the first time I was thinking about going to bed). There were a few more people who had arrived at that point. So, I decided to tough it out a bit longer. Suddenly, at 1:30 AM a rush of people showed up. There were quite a few that I had never seen or talked to a day in my life and just a small handful that I had seen in passing at the gym. I turned to Amanda, who had been at our house in the beginning and said, "Oh, I thought we told them 7:00 pm. My mistake." Suddenly, there was a loud roar through the house of men's voices. Aghhh. It is so difficult being sober in situations like that. However, I would have been just as frustrated had I been two sheets to the wind. Did I say that right? I've never used that expression. Anyway, after about a half hour listening to what had become a high school party (you remember those), I felt like I had to say something. I squeezed my way through the kitchen and genlty got some people's attention, but no one would really listen to me. So, one of our friends raised his voice to get everyone to listen to me and I felt like I had some daggers being shot at me through glassy eyeballs. All I told them was that there were children in the house and asked if they could just bring it down a notch. That worked for an amazing 5 minutes. I also felt like the "party pooper". I chose to stay up and finish it out with the rest of them so that I would not feel like killing everyone had I chosen to try to go to bed and listen to these jack asses make my house shake with their unnecessarily enormous voices. I can't stand that. A few of the guys there were punks, too. Guys that you know for a fact without even having to talk to them were assholes in high school. Those are the guys that walk around like they own the place and don't take the time to introduce themselves to the actual homeowner. Those are the guys that are the ones who spill shit on your new carpet, who feel the need to yell to the guy 1 foot away from him so that everyone can hear how tough and important he is, and is of course the last one to leave even though he's the first one you wanted to leave hours ago. Those are the guys you don't feel too bad letting leave your house when you know they shouldn't be behind the wheel except for the fact you don't want them to hurt any other innocent drunky out on the road at that hour. All night, everyone was slurring to me how great of a trooper I was to stay up with everyone. It's not being a trooper as much as it is the concern for my home, my belongings, my husband's sanity, the poor children sleeping (and yes, they managed to sleep through it), and of course just the pure joy of watching the last one walk out the door and giving a sigh of relief. Ahhhh. "What time did everyone leave?" you ask? Oh, a little after 3:30 in the morning. Only about 4 and a half hours past my bedtime. When Mike and I were finally getting to bed, I had said I didn't want to do that again for a while. His response was, "NEVER AGAIN." I woke up the next morning with what felt like a hang over. No, I wasn't drinking and I wasn't standing around massive cigarette smoke. It was pure exhaustion. It wasn't until 7:00 PM that I finally was able to shake it. It was awful. I had mentioned to Mike again (thinking maybe he forgot what he said tiredly to me the night before) I didn't want to do that again for awhile. Again, his response was, "NEVER AGAIN." So, sorry to anyone who thought the Moodys would hold another rager at their house and wanted to attend, it doesn't look like it will be happening EVER AGAIN. Quite honestly, I'm more than okay with that. I love having my friends and family over for get togethers, but when idiots show up, they tend to ruin it for everyone. Jerks.