Cheers

I went out for an after work drink tonight. It's been a long time but I really needed this one. It's been a long week...a long month...a long year. Strange though. I realized tonight what it feels like to have a curfew. I had a sitter looking after the kids today and I therefore couldn't stay out longer than 8:30pm. Work ended at 7pm ish so that only left room for a pint. I started thinking how nice it would have been to just turn to the waitress and ask for another and maybe a couple more after that.

I'd end up flirting with a cute graphic artist type who would be so wowed by my cheeky personality that he would suggest we go mountain climbing together and I'd say 'sure' and that I'd pack a snack to carry along and we would stay on the mountain top until sunrise and wipe the dew from our self satisfied smiles as we surveyed the poetic landscape of our lives . . . but then I'd remember that I still had laundry in the dryer that I was too tired to deal with the night before along with several piles not yet washed, that Shark Bait our resident Platy fish needed the algae cleaned from his tank, that the cats needed feeding and their box would need to be shoveled out, the children needed to be tucked in, that the house was in a tip, that the bird feeder I had started to build in the basement wasn't going to finish itself, that I needed to get up early to bring the kids to swimming class, I still had notes to rewrite for a negotiating meeting I co chaired last Wednesday, my son's favourite pants needed to be sewed with my fine franken'stiching ability, that although I now had two days off from work in front of me I would still probably run out of time . . . so . . . I would take a raincheck and promise myself another drink another time.

When I was growing up, I never had a curfew. My mom's rationale was that since most of my friends did have curfews I wouldn't need one since I wouldn't really have a reason to stay out once my friends had to go home. It was logical and pretty much right on the money. In my later teens when I started working tech at the theatre, my mom's rationale was that as long as I was with theatre people, I would be safe. Not so logical there mom but, once again, pretty much right on. No harm befell me.

Now, I find it mildly amusing that the curfew I had so successfully avoided having to adhere to in the past has come up and bitten me in the ass. But the Guiness was good and there is something to the saying that one should leave while one still wants a bit more. Makes for better memories I think. And fantasies.