I loathe myself (The Party Break-Away)

I love parties. I don't know whether it's the booze, the company, the alcohol, the drinking, the friends, or the drunkening, but I love parties.

Nothing is better than getting wasted and shooting the shit with people you barely know, and will never know beyond this several hour chunk of time on a weekend night.

This past weekend, my parents threw a party. For those of you who are in their mid-twenties like myself, that means one thing: more and better booze than I can afford myself.

In this case we are talking about four kegs, plus an open bar, where Maker's Mark was the cheapest bottle. Yeah.

The con to a parental shindig such as this is that their friends also feel the need to show up and drink my beer. So I saw a lot of older friends of the family that I haven't seen since I was a sophomore in college, and still drinking illegally.

So I had to make the rounds, tell the same less-than-100-word description of where I am in my life right now, and toss in the occasional closing zinger, because I am, as you should know, hilarious.

So here's where the shame spiral rears its ugly head. After I've gotten my story out, and the laughter from my awesome zinger fades (like I said, I'm hilarious) generally, another conversation starts.

Part I of the problem: this new conversation involves some new recipe that is cheap, or how the kids are adjusting to middle school or some other tripe that I hope I don't have to worry about for another ten years, if ever.

Part II of the problem: I am still in the same circle of conversation that I was previously dominating with my dry wit (hilarious), now I am a black hole of conversation. Unless I'm more than ten beers deep, I don't know where to even laugh or give a "you're so right" kind of sigh. (Not that I know after I'm ten beers deep, it just doesn't matter anymore.)

Here's the rub. Do I sit there, with a half smile on my face, begging for the sweet release of death to spare me from this agony? Do I interrupt the conversation and mumble some awful excuse to leave? Or do I wait for this horrible conversation to come to it's grinding, tedious conclusion, and break away with the rest of the members of the circle.

Here's how I handled it last weekend. After about three to five minutes of awkwardly standing there, I pretended to tip my beer cup up and finish it (because let's face it, it was long gone), and give a curt nod, and make my way back to the keg.

Sounds good right? It worked pretty well, but here's a new wrinkle.

What happens if you're in a one-on-one conversation, and you don't necessarily want to leave the conversation, but the five beers you drank in the last half-hour are saying that you need to leave.

I was in an interesting conversation about literature last weekend. And in between my erudite references, and recommendations that I was trying to remember (and still don't), I had to take a piss.

Do I interrupt my conversation partner's well-heeled analysis of Stephen King's The Dark Tower for the third crudest need of a human being? Do I pull the empty glass trick, and immediately destroy all intellectual credit I built by making it known that beer is greater than books (the jury's still out on that one)?

Luckily, I didn't have to make a decision. I made the glass-tip-up motion, and the guy I was talking to followed my lead, and made his way to the keg, and I made a quick stop at the bathroom on the way.

Even better: I was right behind the guy I was talking to at the keg, and I give a "Fancy seeing you here." Gold.