Mean Girls...

...Gone Old (or at Least Middle Aged).

My day started yesterday at eight AM where I caught a flight from West Palm Beach, Florida (where I fell asleep on the plane and missed my complimentary pretzel) to my connecting flight in Atlanta, Georgia (where I went to a bar and made up for missing my free snack by sucking down two bourbons and some tortilla chips to the tune of $23.00), and finally landed in my Big City around 6:30 PM.

Hans was nice enough to meet me at the airport with pizza (cold) and beer (warm) but thanks to our hideous rush hour traffic, instead of heading for home, we had to go straight to Hans' band practice at a friend's house.

You see, Hans has some friends, who in my opinion, are going through multiple midlife crises and desperately want to be in a band.

And play music in a bar.

They know that way back in the day, Hans was in a punk rock band, and played music in bars, and therefor is their hero.

We arrived at Friend's quite large, what I refer to as cookie cutter, home in the 'burbs and I was given a seat on a couch (with my pizza and beer) in the cold basement (that's bigger than our apartment) where band practice was to commence.

Shortly thereafter, Friend's wife arrived and after a quick wave to all of us, disappeared upstairs.

By the way, something I've never understood is why people buy horrendously expensive homes where the main entry seems to be from the garage(?), and through the basement.

Band practice got underway, and thank God I brought a book, and thank God I could probably read through an earthquake because that's what it was like.

After awhile Friend's wife came downstairs, did not acknowledge me, listened for a few minutes, and then went back upstairs.

An hour and a few horrible cover songs later, another band member's wife arrived, via the aforementioned garage, and with a quick glance at me, shot straight up the stairs to where I'm assuming Friend's wife was waiting for her.

All I know is that after a horribly long day I had to sit through three long hours of loud music and bad pizza, and I just wanted to go home.


But band practice finally did come to an end and after Friend went upstairs to "See if I'm still married" he came back down and said to me, "You should have gone upstairs, the ladies are up there drinking wine."

Well c'mon! What was I supposed to say to that? The lady of the house knew I was there, the late arriving wife of one of the band members knew I was there, but did either one of them extend an invitation to me?

It reminded me of the time when I was little and my mom dragged me to the home of one of her friend's. Her friend's kids were playing outside and after being urged by my mother (who apparently never read 'The Lord of the Flies') to go outside and 'play' I went outside and got tortured. I mean how was I to know that touching the cow fence with a blade of grass would send a jolt of electricity through me?! This was after the little savages promised me it would be fun!

So, yeah, right, I was really going to go into uninvited territory and ask for abuse! I don't think so.

But just in case I was being overly sensitive (and for a 50th birthday present my body gave me the gift of a skipped period so I'm not sure if I have PMS or not) I didn't say anything to Hans until he mentioned it this morning. He thought it was odd that those women would completely ignore me and proceed to sit in comfort upstairs drinking wine, while I had to sit downstairs amid the cacophony of noise for three hours.

I may have grown up in a fixer-upper in a small swamp town, but I never would have treated someone this way. And then I was glad they didn't include me because I have a feeling they were upstairs 'husband bashing' and I don't need or want any part of that. "You know what?" I said to Hans, "When so-and-so's wife arrived, she never even went around the partition to say hi to him. Hell, he never even knew she was there. She came in and ran up those stairs like a jack rabbit."

So next weekend the band has a 'gig' in a tiny downtown bar and while I'm not looking forward to loud music in a small space with these two women at least I won't be stupid enough to touch any live wires with a blade of grass.


I only allow myself to be stupid once!!!!