This post is part of the continuing series of snippets from my upcoming project The Scarecrow Effect. Other posts in this series can be located by browsing the blog or by typing the words "scarecrow effect" into the search engine field. This is not a children's novel.
The Ad
I placed the ad only semi-seriously.
The act of placing the ad itself was the release. It was kind of like by placing it I could get it out of my system.
Midlife crises are a lot more entertaining in movies, novels, and on television. It's not like I came up with that thought all on my own, although I could have. i read it somewhere. In real life, midlife crises are a surface level of humor to those witnessing from afar and a tragedy to those caught in the wake. Broken marriages and strained relationships with one's children and coworkers, etc ... usually result. Dating people the age of one's son or daughter may look one way in the tabloids, but it is just plain creepy in person. Seeing that one guy way too old for a group wearing the younger styles should act like a scarecrow effect for young people.
Scarecrows, I like to call those guys.
It dawned on me when I woke up on a strange couch really hungover using some girl's (woman's?) bare thigh as a pillow that I really was too old for this shit.
This time, there were seven of us asleep in the living room. Another young woman (girl?) was asleep and using my thigh as a pillow. There was a stale smell, kind of greasy, that hung in the air. I didn't pick up a lot of bodily function aromas (think puke) and someone was snoring, but it was clear that most of us had simply ended up there and fallen asleep.
My eyes felt like they were glued and dried closed and that someone or some force was determined to keep them that way. There were times when I woke up unpleasantly, where I could just say "whatever" and wake up again a few hours later. I love snooze alarms. This was not going to be one of those times.
Adam was asleep alone in a chair, his head tilted back, feet shoulder width apart, hands each on an armrest. I could not have posed him better. He could have been, should have been, the snorer. Were I in such a position it would have been moi.
Another girl (woman) was on the floor in front of the couch I was on. She had managed to either get a blanket on, or one of us, likely one of the girls I mused, had covered her up. She looked peaceful. She was at least fifteen years younger than me.
Colin and the other girl were cuddled together on the love seat. They looked like they fit right together, like a couple that knew how to cuddle from years of fitting together. They had met some time after 10:15PM last night.
I was pretty sure it was 6:25AM from the clock, although it could have been 5:30AM. Without my glasses and the angle made it hard to tell which hand was the big hand.
The girl on my leg was the snorer. I moved and she wrapped her arm around my leg tighter.
We were all clothed.
She was gonna have to let go.
I really needed to pee.
It occurred to me I was not really hungover, yet. I was still drunk and buzzing, but the headache was starting. I needed sugar and fluids.
It also occurred to me that I needed to be to work by 7:45AM.
It then occurred to me that Nigel was not visible in the room. It was apparent the red head was not visible either. Nigel was in bad with a girl (woman) a year younger than his daughter.
I wanted to shake my head, but was just waking up on a couch with two young women myself.
Two?
Ahhh ... crap.
Gently, I pushed myself up. The thigh was actually quite nice. She was wearing a short denim skirt, not unclothed. The one using me as a pillow made another soft, but audible complaint, but let go and shifted herself so as to be facing the other way. A quick survey of the room led me to the conclusion that these were all attractive 20 somethings. As the youngest male in the band and just over 40 I understood why guys pick up a guitar.
My leg was asleep.
I nearly tripped trying to get past the coffee table without stepping on blanket girl. The leg tingling was not helping the need to peeing feeling.
As I leaned past the tequila bottle came to my eye level. The cap was off. There were maybe a few shots worth of silver left in it. Three shot glasses surrounded it. Two slices of pizza on the floor and two empty boxes explained the stale greasy smell. I found that observation to be oddly comforting.
Limping down the hall to the bathroom I paused and looked in Nigel's room. The door was wide open. There both still (?) had their jeans on and were on top of the covers all flopped out, like they intended to have something private happen, but neither of them could get past staggering into the room and simply collapsing before clothes could be removed.
I closed the door.
A few minutes later I emerged somewhat refreshed from cold water in the face and relieved enough from other activities to make my way back to the living room.
No one had moved.
By shifting herself, snoring girl had stopped.
It was 6:30AM and I didn't want to be late for work. There was a shower there and a change of clothes I left after our emergency planning meeting and program last spring.
I wasn't sure that waking up on a couch on a Wednesday (?) morning with two women too young for me in what looked like the aftermath of a college frat party would really be an emergency, but it was nice to know I had an inadvertent back up plan anyways.
My wallet and keys were still in my pockets and I was wearing the jacket I had brought with me last night.
It didn't seem necessary to say goodbye to anyone, nut I at least thought about seeing if anyone else needed to be at work soon like me.
I just left.
The hangover was hitting me hard.
****
2 Months Ago:
"Were you in a band years ago? Miss it? Too much free time in front of the TV or online? Do you even have an instrument? Was PUNK new when you were younger? Middle aged awful singer/songwriter wants to for a middle aged punk rock band to show these young punks what's what."
****
I got 37 responses. 11 of the responses were actually serious. Two guys freaked me out. 4 of us clicked. We became The Scarecrow Effect after ten minutes of rehearsing. I was going to need to get really drunk to actually get in front of a crowd and sing.
We were on to something.
The songs came fast. Nigel recorded our first three jam sessions where we created six workable songs out of thin air in a spectacular creative burst.
Within three weeks we had a myspace page with three songs, pics from the jam sessions and 347 new online friends.
A week later we were offered our first gig.
It made a lot of sense to stock up on tequila. I had always assumed that the volume I would need to drink to emotionally get onstage would be too much to keep me from actually performing. I was wrong about that.
After five rehearsals, total, and 38 days after first meeting, we played a drunken set of six originals and a punk cover of Number of the Beast. 34 people attended. Three of those in attendance emailed us pics and one of them posted an 8 minute video of us on youtube that got over a thousand views in 8 days.
That was roughly a week and a half ago.
This morning I was showering at work not knowing for certain the names of either girl I woke up, fully clothed mind you, on a couch with after partying on a school night.
Our second official gig was scheduled for Saturday night at a club where a couple hundred people were going to attend, minimum.
People at work had found out.
I was already sick of tequila.
