Free Booze

Tonight is one of my favourite parties of the year.

The professional (ha!) association I belong to throws a Christmas Party around this time every year. It�s always on a Wednesday, always at the same hotel and always runs technically from 5.30-7.30pm.

The party actually goes on much longer than this, but that�s the time when the bar is open and free. Two hours of free booze.

Tonight will be my 7th attendance at this event. (I choose to leave aside the implications of being a member of a professional association at my stunningly young age.) It�s also likely to be the most staid and relatively drink-free attendance, at least since the great ear infection debacle of 2001.

The Boss is coming this year. He�s invited every year but never wants to go because the party really is attended by the alcoholics and younger members of the association and he is neither of those. Rampant drinking until you get sick is not nearly so much fun when the Boss is around (any boss, mine is not especially wowser-ish).

Also, my Christmas Party partners in crime are all being soft this year as a result of silly things such as work and having babies. Nathan has gone to the party under the Boss�s name for the last five years. This year he�s bloody well stuck at work. Sooze had a baby earlier in the year and is about to head off overseas for Christmas, so she�s a no-show as well. And JacketSwinger is also stuck at work.

This is disappointing on several fronts. JacketSwinger and I actually first bonded at this party seven years ago when we were both trainees. Sooze and I worked together and JacketSwinger was a uni friend of hers. The three of us attended the party together, and partied on afterwards. The evening included watching JS stalk a guy she had a crush on that none of the rest of us could ever fathom, and me getting hit on by a guy who was so clearly gay we thought he was joking at first. He wasn�t, though he was clearly living in a closet in Egypt.

The next day Sooze and I both rocked up to work in the most appalling state I have ever been in at work. We were almost asleep and most likely still drunk. It was a fantastic night.

All the subsequent years I have taken Nathan along with me as a ring-in. Technically he could be a member of the association, he has the same qualifications as I do, but he has just never actually worked in the profession. We have, over the years, been known to mingle and mix and catch up with uni acquaintances, to plant ourselves on the couch by the outside bar not talk to anyone else, and to sneak Smurfette, drink til the bar closes and then head out to more drinking and more dinner. They once had to literally put me into a cab and send me home and I was so sick the next day I couldn�t actually come into work. The only year we didn�t have a good time was 2001 when I had an ear infection and he had to work, so we only stayed for one drink.

I�m going to miss them all this year. I�m unlikely to miss the hangover though.

I�m sure tonight won�t be a total bust though. There�s still free booze, and my Friday night drinking buddies from the office will all be going, so there�s potential for a good night without being totally wrecked. Which is my policy for this holiday season anyway.