CAN WE FORGET ABOUT THE THINGS I SAID WHEN I WAS DRUNK...

well my mom says NO!

my mother - and anyone who knows her will back me up on this - has never had a drink in her whole entire life!

yet she has been married to my father for 42 years, and therefore, for at least two-thirds of that time she's been married to a bunch of racing drivers, their pit crew and mechanics.

my memory bank is SO LOADED with memories of my dad arriving home at four in the morning to a hysterically worried wife and three petrified children i don't know which one to haul out first.

but this one definitely springs to mind:

my dad had ordered a Silver Daytona Ferrari from the factory in Modena and was eagerly awaiting it's arrival, along with all of his friends. they had gathered together after race day at my father's workshops to have a drink in my father's bar. he'd called it 'The Babalooey Inn' for some mystifying reason. actually, maybe not so mystifying now that i think about it. 'Babalooey' was probably some DRUNK code-word they chanted out when they were DRUNK which meant that they were having a DRUNKEN good time. that sounds about right.

anyway, back at home it was getting later and later and my mom was getting more and more ENRAGED and us three were getting more and more TERRIFIED, not only for the safety of my dad arriving home in one piece, but for for his safety from MY MOM who was threatening to pull him apart if he DID!

finally the doorbell rang. he was home. this was IT. the moment of truth. my mom swung our old wooden front door open SO HARD the hinges held on for their lives.

there he stood. with the most sheepish look on his face i had ever seen. but a look i'd come to know well through the course of my life.

he broke the wall of silence with these words: "gulp. i crashed my Ferrari."

whattheHECK kinda LAME excuse was THAT he hadn't DRIVEN IT YET for heavens' sake! but he had. he'd driven it like THREE METERS across the road into an innocent, sleeping person's solid brick wall which had descended upon his bonnet! very funny. in retrospect i'm sure he must've said something like 'one day we'll look back on this and laugh', because i am, right now!

what my mother could NOT handle however, was not so much the drinking and crashed sports cars, it was the use of the tired old line 'i don't remember saying that. I WAS DRUNK'.

because the fact that he could remember all the things that SHE'D said to HIM blew his cover. AND he would act all HURT about it for a couple of days!

what is MY opinion on this mom wants to know. weeeell it's a very interesting topic because i kind of know the answer having been there many many MANY MANY times MYSELF. so here it is: yes you DO remember the things you said when you were drunk, but you wish you DIDN'T because they are things you would NEVER have said when you were sober. why wouldn't you have said them when you were sober? because you didn't have the BALLS to. THAT'S WHY! and your carefully guarded meticulously self-created image would shatter to the floor beneath your feet in an INSTANT, ruining your Nina Roche shoes (the truth hurts) if you came blurting out with emotions you REALLY felt and opinions you REALLY held. then you're wondering stuff the next day like, 'did i REALLY tell Mark he was an insufferable know-it -all who acted far more like the obnoxious Jew that he WAS than he'd like to THINK. oh shit did i say that?! i DID. HOW on GOD'S GREEN EARTH am i going to do damage control with a volley of home-truths like THAT?!' - face screws up like i've just got lemon juice into my eye.

the thing is Mark DOES act like that. and i've sucked up his arrogant Jew-behavior for YEARS because i love him very much. it still irritates me now, twenty years down the line, with the same intensity as day ONE, however telling him's not going to change his personality. but it's OUT THERE NOW! and, as much as i'd love to inhale really REALLY deep and suck those words back IN, i can't.

FYI i never said this to Mark, but i wish i COULD. Goddamit! no, cancel that quadruple vodka and Diet Sprite imaginary waiter in my dream. one day he'll push me far enough and i'll come out with it. SOBER.

so there you have it ma. and don't feel bad about the things you said back to dad when he was drunk. because he KNOWS they're true. all he needed was time to go into his workshop, take the broken pieces of the image of the Great Basil Green, do a bit of welding here and a bit of taping there, get the 'A.O.K' from his mates and he was back to battle-fit in no time.

my dad. today he acts like it was a different human being from another WORLD starring in those stories. but he remembers. a drunk person always does.