An old Army mate invited me to his house-warming party, he had just cleanly separated from his partner and now the house was all his, maybe with a longer mortgage. We had stayed in touch for the 8 years since we stopped working together and I still enjoy his company. The last time we caught up we played chess and he kicked my ass. It’s funny, typically now I am friends with more ex ADF people I didn’t serve with. There is some shared experience with the adversity defence connects people by. My wife and kids were also invited to the party but we assumed correctly that the party wouldn’t be kid-friendly so I went by myself. It was a massive day, I slept poorly the night before with my eldest daughter wriggling in my bed giving me face hugs trying to stay warm.
Most of Saturday was 6 hours four-wheel driving in the bush on a tag along tour which was fatiguing enough in itself. Afterward, I travelled directly the five hours interstate for the party to arrive about 9pm. I grabbed a toothbrush and toothpaste from a supermarket nearby and was well and truly sick of driving by the time I had arrived. I planned to sleep in my clothes in my swag. It was a very cold night with occasional dragon breath and no clouds. I walked around to the back of his house after brushing my teeth to see fireballs reaching the bare tree branches above from him trying to get a wet bonfire going. My friend the host was sloshing petrol out of a 20L jerry can from an eyebrow singeing safety squint distance. There were a couple of fire pits and some cold BBQ food and salad, and I introduced myself to some of his friends. Most of his guests I spoke with were aircraft maintainers or defence contract old work colleagues with a few of his school friends and family. It was the first time I heard my friend speak his native tongue in the whole time I had known him until which I had forgotten of his heritage. I’m fairly-easy to talk to if you’re not a normy woker / douchebag and got along well with the people I did speak with. However – my wife doesn’t let me tell jokes at dinner parties as I have a very dark sense of humour, so I refrain.
I haven’t had alcohol or even caffeine for well over a year, so it was odd seemingly being the only one not drinking at an obvious drinking party. I had some 0% alcohol free beers in the car fridge I could have put in stubby coolers to try and fit in but didn’t feel the need to in the moment. Around 9.30PM my friend the host invited everyone to walk the 200 metres to the local pub which had a winter solstice function on, and the place was quite busy. Again, it felt a bit odd not getting a drink when everyone else did. My friend got his second beer and we walked out the back to a very large laser cut steel fire pit full of tree stumps with lots of cold people huddling around. On the way, my friend slipped on a wet mossy railway sleeper and landed on his back whilst unconsciously trying to save his beer within half a second. Apparently the craft beer in plastic disposable cups was quite pricey – around $14 a beer so I kind of dodged a bullet there too. I have seen this kind of pissed minda behaviour from him and many of my other friends many times before when we were younger, yet it didn’t and doesn’t even raise an eyebrow from me. However – I did give him a courtesy smile when he looked up sheepishly and I said ‘alcohol is bad’. Not long after we got warm by the mega fire pit, a pub employee unplugged the lights and turned off the music to drop the hint to ‘move along’. We moved back inside and last drinks were called. My friend reflected to the group quickly finishing their drinks on how much I had helped him out whilst we were enlisted men which was nice to be reminded of. He remembered shooting ballons at far away distances with my nice rifle and he happily told the story to his mates.
We all walked back to the party after pub close and my friend got the bonfire going again with an old dog kennel that needed to go to the dump. Man, it had zero fire retardant in it, the flames were at least three metres high! I guess there are different standards for pet vs human furniture. I was really feeling the cold and starting to feel pretty wrecked with such a big day and, alas, daycare girl germs were finally catching up with me. I stayed up until 11pm trying to be sociable and my friend offered me a single bed with summer sheets and throwover thin blanket. I thought I’d be warm enough in my clothes but the bedroom windows were stuck open due to mould and the roller blinds weren’t really keeping the breeze out. So, I just shivered harder. I realized fairly quickly that I wasn’t going to get much sleep with drunk people starting to come inside but resisted the urge to go and get the swag out of the car. Around midnight until 4.30AM my friend and his mates were literally playing the drums and electric guitar, jamming around 30m away. I recognized quite a few songs without lyrics so they must have been getting it right. The neighbours must hate my mate! It is ultra-bad-manners. Maybe around 1 AM, I heard a couple of guys just outside of my bedroom window whispering and asking each-other if anyone was looking. No alarm bells yet but about a minute later I heard zips undo then not long after it sounded like they were both having an orgasm with grunts and whooping and swearing with what sounded like high fiving (or buttocks on front of thighs). Each to their own I guess, whatever happens ‘behind closed doors’ ahem, is their business. What is heard cannot be unheard… A little uncomfortable but determined even more to go to sleep – I did manage some microsleeps.
I got up with morning daylight and realized that the remaining guests hadn’t gone to bed and had done an all-nighter. A couple of the guys were frantically searching for a beer box that they hoped hadn’t gone in the fire pit, and I’d put money on it that it had an expensive stash inside. This is because one of them said they couldn’t pull a sickie because they needed to ask their boss for a raise, otherwise he’d take another job offer paying $25k more and that he wouldn’t sleep for three days because of the coke he had the night before. Suddenly the 1AM high five skin slapping sniffing sounds started to make sense and I cleansed that memory!
As a group we went across the road to a bakery at 6AM and had some pastry. I had a hot chocolate and was considering having a sleep at the first truck stop on the 5hr drive home. I was now sick, unsurprisingly. Very much self-afflicted because of no rest. Sleep is probably the number one foundation of health. I said my goodbyes and patiently waited for the front windscreen to defrost and the shivering to stop, then set off for home.
I had quite a few walk-around-the-car stops on the way home to stay awake and did sleep for an hour about half way to get me through.
Too much party for me, I am normally in bed by 8.30PM!
These days I have a lot of healthy habits but it must have been in my early twenties since I had done an all-nighter. I haven’t always been an angel (my mum often tells me my halo is slipping) but I was the kind of guy that could dance for three hours straight at a rave without drugs. I’m lucky I guess that my personality is such that I can have drugs once or twice and not want to do it again. I’m guessing it has been 20 years since I last partook. A multivitamin is as far as it goes for me now. In the past I have tried marijuana a couple of times, acid, mushrooms and ecstasy but have been fine with saying no on many occasions to liquid speed in juice and other occasional free drug offerings. My peer group all agreed that if they ever saw a needle in an arm or a sooty spoon there would be some asses kicked and interventions. In my late teens and early twenties, I overdid it quite frequently with alcohol. I never did anything crazy regretful whilst drunk but wish I knew how to not go overboard. I was a late bloomer with women, but I am sure I had many missed opportunities due to being drunk and completely oblivious of their interest. Even as a solider there was heavy drinking culture with mandatory Friday afternoon boozer parades with $2 beers and $3 spirit cans. Having joined Defence probably a few years later than my peers, the social aspect and nightlife was a little extended for me which I really enjoyed.
Now enlightened with Freedom from Self-sabotage coaching and seeing the world for how it really works, the list of ways people like to harm themselves in a socially acceptable way are endless. And I know why people think the way they do and how the subconscious works. People trim their own tall poppy mainly due to just trying to fit in and not be the odd one out. Also – there is an agenda behind why smoking cigarettes is still legal and shit food is way cheaper than healthy food, why avocados were fat vilified, and fructose is still on the supermarket shelves.
Next party for me might be a dance party with the kids, maybe with the Wiggles on the TV or whilst watching Frozen for the fiftieth time.
BLACKSHEEPSTRAIGHTSHOOTER
