Hangover

I woke at 4:55 a.m. to the alarm and rolled over in pain. I stumbled to the bathroom in the dark and drank about a quart and a half of water and splashed my face. I swallowed 3 or 4 aspirin. I could still feel the effects of all that scotch.

I phoned into the Sanjay (co-worker in India) using the company phone card. Sanjay was unhappy with me that I wasn’t on video – this would get back to Dave (the boss) fast. Crap. I barely participated in the call – I didn’t have any notes with me and I was doing everything from memory, which was a bit fuzzy. Some grunts and “mmmhm”s at various places seemed to do the trick. I begged off the call as soon as I could.

It was 5:45 and still dark and wet outside. I set the alarm for 9:00 and climbed back into bed and fell instantly to sleep.

At 9:00 I awoke in much better spirits – but still feeling a mean hangover. The message light on the phone was blinking. I called down to see what it was. Maurizio was the only person that knew I was here. It turns out that there was a room service breakfast ordered for me. They brought it up quickly. It was quite good – Maurizio had made some good selections. He really knows how to take care of people.

I went downstairs checked out. I intended to pay for my room and breakfast, but Maurizio had already paid for everything. I argued with the lady at the front desk, but Maurizio had set things up so that I could not pay myself – what a nice guy. I walked back to where my car was parked – in the visitor’s lot for Maurizio’s apartment. There was no sign of him so I drove home.

I got into work a bit before 11 and Dave called me into a conference room as soon as he saw me. He spent about 15 minutes chewing my ass off for missing the video conference. I gave feeble excuses. I could not win this one. The best I could do was to try to look contrite and promise that it would not happen again. If there is a layoff anytime soon I just bumped myself to the top of the list (if I wasn’t already there) Pretty damn irresponsible of me.

I was sitting in my cube trying to clear my head.

“You look like shit.” I heard Lynn say

“Yeah, and don’t yell.” I walked over to the whiteboard and wrote “Morning meeting safety tips” across the top. Beneath this I wrote, “ 1) Keep it under 5 scotches.”

“I missed my morning meeting with Sanjay. Dave just chewed my ass off.”

She looked down. “You still have a little left.” And she laughed – an old joke from a movie.

“I was out drinking with Maurizio. He is one hurtin’ puppy.”

“I bet he is this morning.”

“Yeah, well. It was good scotch and he was buying. He is with his new honey, but there’s trouble in paradise. I’ll give you the dirt tomorrow night.”

Dinner is at Lynn’s house tomorrow night. Jim is out of town on a business trip.

I’m excited and nervous at what might (or might not) happen. She’s got me damn confused. I’d really like to be with her, but she’s made no indication that she’s leaving Jim. I don’t want to be “the other guy” - I want to be "the guy". Since “the kiss” she’s been incredibly careful to show absolutely no signs of affection toward me in front of anyone else. WTF – I’ll never understand women.