New Year in Vincent and Darlene Home

My second or third New Year's Eve in the United States, way back in the early 80's, was celebrated at my Uncle Vasken's home. It was a boring and unremarkable affair, with two exceptions: my Uncle Julian, visiting from Uruguay, had just purchased a VCR that he was going to take back home; and, as luck would have it, my Uncle Vasken had just purchased a videotape recorder. At my Dad's behest, Uncle Vasken set the recorder up to film the family dinner so we could ship the tape off to Uruguay and have all the relatives who presumably missed us terribly catch a live-action glimpse of our opulent and happy existence in the country we now called home. All this would have been well and good had it not been for the fact that the camera was set up on a tripod, aimed at the dinner table, and God only knows why, not moved for the remainder of the evening.

The resulting video was an excruciatingly boring two-hour extravaganza where we all ate, then remained at the table carrying on isolated conversations that were practically inaudible until the tape finally ran out. Uncle Vasken slapped on a label, wrote "New Year in Vasken Home" on it and handed it to Uncle Julian as my Dad beamed with pride. Once Uncle Julian made it back to Uruguay and bribed some customs POS to not appropriate his VCR, the tape became required viewing for any family member who happened to visit Uncle Julian & Aunt Wilma. Hell, I think even their unsuspecting neighbours were subjected to the torture of watching two hours of people acting weird because they were being filmed for the first time in their collective lives. How bad was Uncle Julian's "come see the family video" compulsion? My cousin Dide once told me that she'd been force-fed the now-legendary "New Year in Vasken Home" tape some twenty times, and her then-husband Carlos argued that it was more like thirty times.

Why do I bring this up? Because up until a couple of weeks ago, that was my most remarkable New Year's Eve/Day ever... and then came "New Year in Vincent and Darlene Home." The highlights:

• When I showed up at Lee's so we could carpool to Vince & Darlene's (they live on the East Coast), his smoke detector was beeping loud and insistently, with nary a spare battery in sight. We left it that way, and Karma would pay us back later that evening.

• Once of Vincent's co-workers (his name escapes me, since I really suck with names) was kind enough to invite the whole gang, including Darlene's super-cool Frenchie parents, over to their place for an open-bar New Year's Rockin' Eve party. Bad idea! Even Tee-totaler Bitter Clevelander slammed down a dozen or so Margarita / Diaquiri concoctions.

• The heavy drinking led to a few bizarre moments, including a graphic and very loud group conversation among the FuckGCU crowd on the merits of masturbating in one's office as opposed to in one's home, which I capped off by stating that I'd rather be caught jerking my gherkin by my girlfriend / wife / whatev than by Lupe the Cleaning Lady. I think Vincent's co-worker & his friends are still traumatized.

• Our hosts were extremely gracious, welcoming, and made even my anti-social arse feel right at home. However, they have not one, not two, but THREE filthy dogs, and excepting yours truly, pretty much everybody and their mommas spent the night oohing and aahing and touching the flea-ridden buggers, then walking around and dipping their dog-hands all over the food and drinks. Dis-fuckin-gusting. As if that weren't bad enough, the restroom had no soap, so in addition to dog-hands, I can guarantee that there were plenty of pee-, shit-, and cock-and-ball-hands flying around the joint. I always carry liquid soap (and situations like this one ALWAYS vindicate this precaution), but that did nothing for my peace of mind over everyone else's filth, so I eventually took matters into my own hands and rudely ransacked the house, hunted down some soap, and triumphantly placed it on the bathroom sink. I hope they used it. Ugh.

• One of the dogs is a frisky puppy that basically tried to start fights with the other two dogs at all times. This led to quite a few yelping, snarling, barking, and vicious biting incidents that were pooh-poohed until I yelled something about New Year's Eve at Michael Vick's rape stand. That earned me a few dirty looks from Vincent's friend's friends, but it also put a stop to the dog shenanigans -- they were banished to the backyard. Good riddance.

• Our hosts' friends included the host's brother, who was really nice and very funny, some wannabe surfer dude who was a real douchebag, and two or three other couples. One of these couples included some cop dude and his skanky red-headed girlfriend, who made a lot of noise about women being great drinkers and offering to down a huge Erlenmeyer flask of beer only to puss out after four sips, thereby discrediting her whole gender. The host's cool brother finished off the flask and didn't brag or rub it in her face -- did I mention he was really nice?

• We watched the New Year countdown on whatever network Dick Clark was on. Shockingly enough, not only is Dick Clark still around, but he's finally aged, and all at once. He looks like a cadaver that's being moved around by practical jokers, kind of like Weekend at Bernie's, and sounds like Lawrence Tierney on Valium. Still, it's always reassuring to see Dick Clark doing the New Year countdown. I guess I have no point.

• When the cop and "Skanky Red" left and said their good-byes, Skanky Red proved to have a vice-like, crushing handshake. I kinda pity the cop, her grip was bruising -- I shit you not. As they were walking out the door, they invited Darlene's dad Bernard to go with them, promising him authentic Cuban cigars as enticement. I can't even begin to explain how surreal and creepy the vibe was; I almost expected them to bring out the sex swing, a mechanical dildo, and even "the gimp." As it turns out, the cop lived right across the street and had heard that Bernard loved cigars, so the gesture was a kind one. Still, I felt palpable relief when a grinning Bernard returned with a few Fidelitos in tow.

• We ended up making it back to Vincent & Darlene's at around 3:00, where we woke up Darlene's mom, who'd stayed home with the flu. She exacted vengeance an hour or so later by waking us all up with a violent vomiting session. It figures that the only person who didn't drink him / herself into a stupor was the one who ended up puking into the wee hours. Poor thing.

• Roughly an hour later, I awoke to the sound of shrill beeping. I thought I was dreaming about Lee's smoke detector, then realized it was an alarm. It took me a while to figure out that it was probably Lee's cell phone. I debated whether to get up off the air mattress and shut it off, or whether I should pick the phone up and throw it at Lee as hard as I could (he was on the couch), or whether Lee actually meant to get up at five f*cking thirty in the morning on New Year's Day. I was still in a grumpy, cursing, indecisive, sleepy haze when Lee finally turned the piece of crap off.

• On the ride back to the West Coast, Lee and I both lamented the dearth of hotties at the New Year's Eve shindig (Darleenie-Weenie doesn't count, even though she's adorable & cute as a button, 'cause she's like a sister). I confessed that towards the end of the soirée, I'd actually started stealing glances at Skanky Red Ballcrusher, and wondering if her knockers were real... exactly the kind of "thinking" sequence that leads to one going to bed at 2 with a 10 and waking up at 10 with a 2. But Lee assured me that thanks to all the other women there, he himself found that Skanky Red's looks improved as the night wore on and the alcohol piled up, and that by the time we were all leaving she was, and I quote, "looking pretty fucking spectacular."

Ah, the New Year is off to a rocking start already. May we meet plenty of other drunken skanks over the next twelve months!