Dude, where's my car?!?!?

Or more importantly, where is my mind?

First of all, I rarely drink, but every once in awhile I drink a little too much when I do drink. Last night was one of those nights. Nothing dangerous. Just unnecessary excess.

Last night was the Oldominion 10 year reunion, part II! I'm not so into late nights out at loud places anymore, but my friend's brother is in this group, and I've known some of these guys for that whole 10 years, or longer. Plus, 10 year reunions only happen once, or twice in their case; the first one was in Portland in the summer; the second one in Seattle.

So I planned to spend the night with my friend at her dad's house, not far from Neumo's on capitol hill. Her dad wasn't home that night, and so I parked in his parking space instead of out on the street. This is around 9 pm.

Six hours later, a taxi is dropping me off at my friend's. She is not with me. I imagine she is in bed, asleep. And I don't have my cell phone. I have no way to reach her to get her to let me in. So I walk around back to get my phone out of my car.

My car is not there.

It's 3 in the morning. 

Where is my car?

It feels like that moment in Pee Wee's Big Adventure, when he discovers that his bike is missing.

And I think my car's been stolen or towed. 

And how am I going to get inside without a phone? 

I am upset and don't know what to do other than to ring the buzzer, which is equivalent to calling my friend's dad! So I do it, waking him up, and he buzzes me in remotely.

"My car's been stolen or towed! Or am I blind?" 

My friend looks out the window. I'm not blind. My car's not there. 

And just as she's going to get her phone to call the police (there's no reason why it would have been towed), suddenly she remembers what we both had forgotten.

My car was several blocks away, parked outside of another friend's apartment.

I start wondering if forgetting this has anything to do with bumping my head. Probably not, but I wonder.

And this morning, when we walked to my car, it was there. But my friend's car was not. It had been towed!

The moral of the story: I don't know; I think I killed some brain cells last night. But the moral of the story is probably something along the lines of "when it's almost midnight and you feel you have 2 choices: leave or drink more-- just leave." 

And the questions I'm left with are these:

Why is alcohol such a common part of celebrations? Why celebrate by poisoning ourselves? 

At some point last night I convinced myself the whole thing was an experiment for me. Would I enjoy the show? Would I enjoy the music? The energy of the people surrounding me? Would I drink a little? Would I drink a lot? Why? And how would it make me feel?

I think it's time I stop experimenting on myself. The past couple of years were full of nutrition experiments, detox and cleansing experiments. I guess last night was a retox experiment. One that won't be repeated.