My Mission in Life

At that point it was my mission in life, well what do you care what my mission is?  Don't you have your own guiding light?  Doesn't something big and grand get you out of bed every day.  Something that you were born knowing you had to do?  That you've always known you had to do? Well I'll tell you my mission.  But later, I'm not ready quite yet.

I will tell you this: I was looking for something.  Okay, so I wasn't really looking at first.  At first, I was at a bar.

It was the then common style of bar.  Full of pretty young people, who order elaborate sounding shots like, "Red Headed Buttery B-52 Gas Chamber Nipple Bombers".  They'd tell the bartender exactly what was in it, and the order to layer in various alcohols and flourishing flavorants, which usually resulted in the bartender very confidently pouring 1.5 ounces of tequila into a shot glass, and sliding it across the bar.  Sometimes the bartender would look, with furrowed brows, at a recipe book.  One may notice an "aha" moment, followed by, with renewed vigor, the bartender filling a shot glass full of tequila and handing it over.

No one really minded.  They didn't come to the bar to impress their friends with an impressively deep knowledge of obscure shots -- that was just a bonus.  People came to the bar to drink.  To enjoy some of the Bud Limelight, or the Pabst Blue Second Prize Ribbon life had bestowed upon them.  While it wasn't exactly something to live for, it was apparently a popular alternative to dying.  So that's where I started.  In a room full of people who didn't want to die, but weren't necessarily above poisoning themselves.

A couple of hot-to-trot little 72 year olds were sitting by the bar.  They'd scoff at anyone who tried to talk to them without buying them a drink.  "As if" they'd say.  They'd shake their head in such a way, that if they had any hair left, it would have flipped over their shoulder, magnificently indicating the end of your exchange.  A group of frat boys in the back were yelling and screaming at the game on television.  "No you imbecile! Knight to A-4."  "Mate that check!"

The night was filled with giggling, yelling, punching, kissing, and fighting.

After a few hours, I drove home.  Not like those irresponsible twits who "drive under the influence" or "drive while intoxicated" or "drive with a seat belt on".  No sir, I knew I had too much to drink to maintain safety on the road, so I was riding shotgun -- with an incredibly wasted designated driver.  My designated putter was too drunk to even get out of the trunk.

A cop pulled up and pulled us over.  He gave us a ticket "that's the ticket" we thought.

Upon arriving home I unlocked the door, took off my shoes, put my keys on the hook, walked upstairs to my bedroom, got undressed, put on my pajamas and promptly fell asleep.  I woke up the next afternoon to a very loud and confused Mexican family who live in the apartment below mine.  None of us were quite sure why I was dressed like a Unicorn in their bathtub below a broken window with bloody feet.  I had bloody feet, not the window.

That's how the first day of following my life's mission went.