The party was going full tilt New Year’s Eve. Great food, dry martinis, amazing band playing songs I actually recognized, beautiful woman by my side, good friends across the table.
Sweet Annie glistened and glowed in her New Year’s Eve regalia; no Hollywood superstar strutting the red carpet at the Oscars has ever shone brighter.
It should have been an evening for the record books.
Instead, I found myself repeatedly checking my watch and waiting impatiently for the ball to drop so I could honk my little noisemaker, guzzle my champagne, and head home where I could change into sweats and finish reading Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol.”
There was no logical reason for me to be having anything other than a fabulous time. Yet … I was kinda bored.
For one thing, it was too loud to carry on anything resembling a normal conversation. I used to LIKE my parties loud. The louder the better. As recently as a few years ago, if my ears weren’t ringing by the time a wing-ding broke up, I considered the evening a wash.
What, I wondered, had changed? Here I sat with Annie, my friend, Calvin and his girlfriend, Shirley — three of the most interesting people I know — and communication was possible only through lip reading, wild gesticulation and the deployment of those small flags they use to guide jets onto aircraft carriers.
Why did this suddenly matter? I have no idea.
But, for Annie’s sake, I did my best to appear as though I was having a good time. I danced (with all the rhythm and natural grace of a rabid ferret on powerful amphetamines), I laughed, I lustily sounded my noisemaker.
Sweet Annie had put a lot of time and effort into gussying up for the event — going so far as to buy a new gown and matching shoes — and I wasn’t about to ruin her fun by being a party-pooper.
And, in truth, I really was having an OK time, kind of. It’s just, I dunno, I would have preferred to be home with my feet up, watching an old Bing Crosby movie or finishing the Dickens. Earlier in the month I was excited by the possibility of the world ending, but since that didn’t happen, the passing of 2012 and the start of 2013 meant nothing to me.
I’ve seen a lot of non-apocalypse years come and go and the novelty has pretty much worn off.
Dick Clark is as dead as Guy Lombardo, so I have no idea who hosted this year’s feté in Times Square, but the televised ball finally did drop, everybody sang “Auld Lang Syne,” I kissed Annie, Calvin kissed Shirley, other couples around the room kissed, we all downed our complimentary bubbly and the band went on break in order to be first in line for the free midnight hor’deurves.
“Are you having fun, baby?” Annie asked. Other women have called me “baby” over the years, but for some reason when Annie does it my knees get a little wobbly and I have a hard time breathing right.
“Um, sure,” I lied. Like I said, I wasn’t going to be a party-pooper and drag my sweetie away from what, for her, was obviously a fabulous, glamorous time.
But all parties must end and this one did, too. We shuffled our uncomfortable, shiny shoes over the icy parking lot and — breath billowing in white gusts — shivered into the waiting car.
Annie was quiet for a few miles, then said, “Well, that was fun.”
“You bet,” I said.
She was quiet a while longer. “I know you love stuff like that,” she ventured.
“Well … sure,” I said.
“Oh, yes, me too, me too,” she said, hurriedly. Then, tentatively, “But maybe next year, we could just stay home or have a couple friends over for a few drinks or something.”
We talked. Turns out Annie had been putting on a show of having a great time for my sake while I was doing the same for hers. Both of us would much rather have been ringing in the New Year at home, fireside, over a nice glass of Jameson and a game of Scrabble.
I guess no matter how many New Years you witness, you’re never too old to learn something new.
Mike’s book, “Looking at the Pint Half Full,” is available from Robbins Book List in Greenville and in ebook format at Amazon.com. Contact Mike at mtaylor325@gmail.com.
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