7/5/10 The World Cup Causes Me Trouble: A One Sentence Memoir

Though I had an extremely long day of World Cup Imbibing (10 AM to Midnight) the day before Ian's kiddie birthday party, I thought I recovered nicely-- I got up early from Stacey and Ed's place in South Amboy and drove Stacey's stick shift car (not my forte) to Helmetta so I could get my car, and I was still home before 7 AM, and I immediately starting doing whatever my wife asked me to do-- I picked up the cake and balloons and juice boxes and other ingredients, I cleaned the kiddie pool, I straightened the back yard, and I attempted to fill water balloons-- but by the time the party rolled around I was dragging a bit, and I guess I wasn't as involved as I should have been, and mainly I talked to my friend Dom about a new book he was reading that sounded interesting (Flat Broke in the Free Market: How Globalization Fleeced the Working People) but any time Catherine asked for help I helped her and then later in the day when we were at the pool I jokingly mentioned to a friend that I had "failed" at Ian's kiddie party and she said, "Let me guess what happened . . . one of the parents there was a friend of yours that you hadn't talked to in a while and instead of helping your wife, who was running around like a madwoman, you sat and talked to your friend and had to be reminded by your wife to help out," and I said, "That's remarkably accurate, how did you know?" and she said, "Because my husband did the same thing and I said to him, 'Look asshole, if you want to talk to your fucking friend, then you call him up like an adult and you go meet him in a god-damned bar like a grown-up but right now you're going to help me with this party'" and I should mention that this is a friend who rarely uses profanity.