You have to

Before the three Scotches there were two at the bar before the two at the bar there were three beers with dinner before the three beers with dinner there were four beers at a different bar and before the four beers at a different bar there was a beer at my buddy’s house.

I remember generously tipping the cab driver. I don’t remember lying down. I also remember turning the computer on because I wanted to send an email.

It was a very nice night despite all the alcohol. Some folks couldn’t make it so it was just us five.

While having drinks at the bar, we were discussing how we were all getting home and somehow it was decided that we would all go back to Joe’s house, so when someone’s daughter showed up with her friend all seven of us piled into her midsize car and drove eight blocks to Joe’s house.

Prior to sardining ourselves into the car, Joe called his wife and told her of the plan and said that she had seven minutes to clean the house.

Joe has two young kids and both he and his wife work fulltime jobs. I had been in his house earlier in the day and there were some clothes and stuff about in the way that happens when you actually live in a house but it wasn’t bad; by the time we walked in, the house looked in order but you could still feel the energy of the high alert that the household was just under.

We spent a few hours drinking and talking in his kitchen.

At one point his six year old daughter asked to use the recently acquired iPad. Joe was concerned that she would drop it, his wife thought that the daughters desire to write overshadowed his concerns. Joe relented.

While he was in the dining room hooking the keyboard up to it, I told Kathleen that I agreed with her.

“I was taking photos one day with my SLR,” I said as I pointed to the SLR digital camera on the table, “And my niece asked if she could take a photo and at first you wonder if you should just hand over your six hundred dollar camera to a five year old but you also want to encourage them.”

“So you hand them the camera. You gotta.”

“Yeah, you have to.”

(I wasn’t correcting her because I say gotta all the time because sometimes you just gotta use it. I was just agreeing)