One Of Those Nights

I had just closed the front door. Was standing in the foyer of the big house when there was a huge, ham fisted pounding on the great slab of oak. I thought this was a bit strange. Didn't see anyone behind me as I made my way up the driveway, right?

Now, you have to consider the condition of my brain at this point. I had gotten a ride to the party in Stan Lee's limo, Stan was hitting the Jack rather fiercely that night and, seeing as to how he hadn't been invited to said party felt a need to challenge me to some guzzling. "C'mon, you true unbeliever! Suck some back!" I tried to be polite. Told him I'd be having my fill soon enough but when he started calling me a pussy I figured the gauntlet had been thrown and chugged about a third of the bottle with my right hand while flipping his ass off defiantly with my left. "Pussy THAT, old-timer!", I snarled and handed the bottle back. It was about that time that he laid out some Godzilla sized lines of what he liked to call "South American Jumping Powder". Suffice to say that on the way up the drive the drops of water glittering on the oh so green of the lawn struck me as solid and complete proof of God's existence. "How could anything that beautiful come into our reality without some kind of divine handiwork involved?" You know, that whole drinky/druggy vibe.

So I opened the door and Robert Conrad is standing there with a huge tank of nitrous (the kind with wheels and a handle attached for easy transportation) and a case of Night Train. I guess he was slumming it that night. "Hey, asshole! Where's the fucking party at?", he screamed, and by the smell of near cheese on his breath I could tell he had been into the 'train for quite some time.

He shoved a bottle in my face and said, "Drink this, nancy boy or I'll strangle you with a live dachshund." Laugh? I nearly crapped. The guy did have his moments, humor-wise, I have to give him that.

I'm standing there, putting away the Night Train when he bellows, "Where the fuck do I put my coat?". He opens a door and Paul Lynde sticks his head out of the crack, sees the confusion on Conrad's face, and says, in a Chardonnay fueled impression of himself, "Sorry, Bob. I'm not out of the closet yet!"

Conrad: "Suck my dick!"

Lynde: "Take a number, cowboy!"

That did it. I totally lost it at that point. Was laughing so hard I started to lose my balance, right? So I stick my left hand out and grab the first thing I feel to steady myself. Wrong move on my part. I found myself hanging onto Margaret Dumont's left breast! She says, in that shocked, upper crust kind of way that is all hers, "Well! I never!"

Pat Sajak is walking by at that point, helping Dianne Arbus to the bathroom. You know how she gets after seven or eight Bloody Marys, just a full on pain in the ass. Pat says to Miss. Dumont, "Oh, yeah? What about that night with the donkey at that boat show in Sheboygan?"

Dumont blushes and, just as she's about to answer him Dianne Arbus says, "Aw, shut up, bitch! I've got pictures to prove it." That Dianne Arbus being ever at the ready with a cutting rejoinder, to be sure.

I'm on the floor at this point, laughing as if insane. Dumont shoves her hand into a nearby salsa bowl and crams a fist full into my open mouth. I'm so wasted I don't even feel it. Either that or it was one of those wimpy mild brands of salsas. I swallowed it and flipped her off as well.

Just then I look up and I see Wavy Gravy hanging from the chandelier. I guess he had been there the whole time and I just hadn't noticed him. He says, "Wow! Bad news, man! I spiked the salsa bowl with some acid I got from Walter Cronkite! First class government stuff! You're gonna be tripping for a month, man! It's heavy duty shit! The kind they use on blue whales! Fast acting too!"

I look down at this point and see that I'm slowly sinking into the floor. I'm waist deep in some kind of retro/googie/post-moderne space ship pattern that's like something right out of George Jetson's kitchen. Blurp, blurp! It a matter of moments I find myself chest deep and sinking deeper. Fast acting doesn't do this electric salsa justice. I'm fucking ripped!

A voice screams out, "Just the asshole I've been looking for!"

Oh, Christ! It's Billy Barty! He's been gunning for me ever since he got burned on that heroin deal. I've tried to explain that I had nothing to do with it. That I don't even know Bill Cullen but he just won't listen. The blame has to fall somewhere and he's picked me for the fall guy. He kicks me in the nuts, awfully hard for a guy his size but I'm so fucked up I just laugh even harder. Now he's crazed. "Nobody laughs at me!", he screams.

I'm about to shoot back with, "Yeah. You're just not very funny any more, Tiny!", when I see that I'm sunk into the floor up to my chin. Billy straps the mask from the nitrous tank on my face and cranks the gas up to eleven.

Just before I pass out I think, "Great...  It's one of THOSE nights?"