I Stole Someone’s Childhood

A couple weeks ago, a friend called me up and said “Let’s go out!”. Even though I had an event the very next morning (well, noon) that required drinking, I said okay, sure that I would nurse all my drinks and be home at a decent hour.

We met up at our usual place; she proceeded to nurse her drinks and I did not. We then moved onto our next destination and ran into a bunch of people we knew. At one point, it was getting late and she had a dentist appointment the next day, so she called it and went home.

At least that’s what should have happened; I stayed behind without a second thought. It was someone’s birthday party and one of my friends had won a door prize. He gave it to me.

I’m not sure he knew just how happy it made me. I do love door prizes after all. I was getting ready to leave when one of my friends was all “Come on, Heather, we’re going to my place”. I think I put up a little bit of a fight, but then, sure enough, found myself in his apartment chatting it up with his girlfriend and getting another drink dropped in my hand.

He announced that we were going someplace else. I said I had to go home, but he convinced me to go. It may or may not have been very easy seeing as I was pretty intoxicated by this point.

I found myself at this party, where I knew no one and everyone knew everyone. Ordinarily, I might find that situation awkward, but not that night.

I made my rounds meeting people, a few of whom I remember the names of, a few of whom I do not. At one point, the host said “It’s late, everyone has to leave”. All his friends we were like “No – not yet… blah, blah, blah”. I gathered my door prize, my coat and purse and tried to make my way out of the confusing apartment building and onto the street so I could get a cab. I managed to do that and found myself hitting my pillow at 4:30am, completely hammered. So much for my plan.

Morning came all too fast and I found myself completely hungover; since I paid $60 for a ticket to the wine festival, I dragged myself out of bed, hit the showers and staggered around waiting for death, while trying desperately to get ready, make myself presentable and put my game face on.

I succeeded, or at least, I thought I did.

I was on the bus waiting for my friends to board at their respective stops and I felt like complete shit. My first friend boarded and then a couple stops later, the next one. They were positively chipper and chatting away. I was concentrating on not throwing up.

After a few questions regarding what I got up to the night before, the cat was out of the bag.

Apparently my game face is transparent because she said “I knew something was off with you but I didn’t know what!”. We went for lunch where I pushed a salad around my plate and drank about a litre of liquids.

We made it to the event and the moment of truth came; I got the first taste of wine in me and thankfully knew I would be okay. We spent two hours at the event, then met up with friends for more drinks, then went out for more drinks. By 11, the girls were tapped out, so we went on home.

The next morning, I unloaded my door prize winnings and found something in the basket that I didn’t recall being in there when I got the thing.

It’s a picture. Of a little boy, just getting off a school bus. There’s a date handwritten in mom-writing on the back “1988”.

The boy looks vaguely familiar; I think I might have met him at that party. But 26 years later and the amount of alcohol I consumed that night, I don’t know who he is.

All I know is, I’m pretty sure I managed to steal a picture of someone’s first day of school.