I had been shanghaied into attending an afternoon “party” at my mother-in-law’s condo, which is populated by exclusively by people older than Moses. My wife laid down the law, that we were stuck there for at least two hours before I could “come down with the flux” or pretend to have a fever, thus extricating myself from the affair. It was rough.

As soon as I walked into the clubhouse I became depressed. Gaudy furniture, wood paneling and the smell of death. As we made our way to an empty table I looked around and took in the scene. These people were fucking old. You know what I mean. Full grown adult women shrunk down to the size of leprechauns, every third person had a walker and scattered about were a few with portable oxygen tanks.

A buffet was being set up that contained “pot luck” dishes made by the attendees. Let me first say that I don’t eat things other people have prepared behind closed doors. I will eat dinner at friend’s houses because I have known most of my friends for twenty years or more. I know their food preparation habits. I lived with some of these people and they’re clean and smart. However, under no circumstances will I eat pot luck food at work or anywhere else. Especially not shit that’s been prepared by these old bags. They looked like they could have voted for Lincoln. I couldn’t even identify some of the shit they cooked and I was sure it contained rubber gloves and morphine patches and cotton balls and who-knows-what-else.

I did drink a glass of “wine” which came from a bottle with a screw on cap; only because it was the only thing I could find to anesthetize myself from the whole affair. And if that wasn’t enough some old bastard was setting up a PA system and trying to fix the reed on a tenor saxophone. I am not making this shit up. Meanwhile I was being introduced to people as fast as they could shuffle by, which wasn’t very. It was 2:00PM and they announced that the food would be served at 3:00. That meant I had to sit there for an hour with the pre-dead. Just then the guy with the saxophone cranked up his karaoke machine and started singing along with it as if that was a fucking acceptable thing to do. And it was bad. Very bad, and very old. I felt a part of me die as belted out “Quando, Quando, Quando.” He couldn’t get with the beat, probably because he was listening to the Angel Gabriel calling him home.

I started to feel light-headed. I had another glass of “wine.” And every once in a while the old guy singing would start blowing into his saxophone and it would cut through my head like a hot knife through butter. And then the food was served.

I was determined not to get up any reason but then my mother-in-law asked me to get her a plate of food. The worst part was I knew that I could not possibly fulfill this request to her exacting specifications. So I got up and walked over and stood in the line. It was peaceful enough for a minute or two but soon the old folks realized they had forgot to push and shove and when they realized their mistake they made up for lost time with gusto. I kept getting jabbed by some guy’s walked, the leprechaun women were moving in under my arms and the whole thing was just too much to weather. Since they couldn’t see they were dropping food all over the floor and meanwhile the old bastard was blowing into his saxophone and I freaked out and went back to the table and pleaded to my wife to please, for the love of God, help me before I became wholly undone.

By the time I got home I went right to the bottle which is where I find myself still, some hours later. Forsaken.