Proof that I have not lost my badassedness to motherhood*

On Thursday nights I meet a couple friends out for a drink. I don't make it out every week but when I do, it's a nice break in the week--especially in these last few months with all the house craziness.

Yesterday was particularly deserving of an adult beverage. I took the girls to the pool in the morning, then took them grocery shopping, then had to get home to wait around for the home appraiser. My girls really should have laid down for some "quiet time" because they were really wiped out from swimming, but I knew they would get interrupted by whoever was coming over to appraise the house. So, no nap.

Nevermind that the guy was an hour and half later than he said he was going to be, and my kids were practically clawing at their face in exhaustion. When Mina gets overtired, she takes on all the characteristics of someone with Tourette's Syndrome, randomly shouting and screeching. Audrey just whines and cries at every single imagined infraction of the universe.

Add to all of this the fact that I was on day one of Bleed Fest June '07, and even though I had taken enough ibuprofen to put down a racehorse, I could still feel my shitty baby purse cramping away.

By 5:30, the noise level in my house had reached monkey house proportions, and I was ready to put my head in the oven.

By the time 9:30 rolled around, I was more than ready to get that drink.

I got to the bar and strolled down to the end to find my friend and her husband waiting. She got up to play some songs on the jukebox, so I followed her over to chat. While we standing there, some drunk fuck stumbled by and literally stopped in his tracks and proceeded to give her a full body leer. He was gross and grizzled and smelled like ass. It was kind of funny the way he didn't even try to hide the fact that he was checking her out head to toe.

We shrugged it off and went back to picking songs.

When we sat back down, Drunk Perv happened to be sitting a couple seats down, across the L-shaped bar. My friend than told me that Drunk Perv had been sitting there the whole time she had been there, trying to make conversation with her husband and her for a good hour. By the time I got there he was so drunk, he was now just staring at us. He might have been drooling. I don't know. It was kind of dark in there.

After trying to ignore him and talk with my friend, I couldn't take it anymore. It's really hard to have a conversation when someone is boring holes in your breasts with their eyes, and not even trying to be subtle about it.

Finally, the day caught up with me. All the yelling and crying and waiting around and trying to pack and make lists for the next day and thinking about my surgery and already being so tired from it all spewed out of me.

"YOU NEED TO FUCKING STOP IT RIGHT NOW!"

"Wha--"

"I don't know if you're staring at her or him or me or WHAT, but you need to stop fucking staring over here because it is seriously creeping me out."

"I'm just listening to the music..."

"I don't care what you're doing, but you need to stop staring at us while you do it."

So he got up and stumbled out of the bar.

I don't know what came over me. I mean, that's something I always want to say when this type of situation comes up, but I never do. Sure, I've had my share of "incidents" in the past, but it's been years since I got to break a bottle on someone's head, put a cigarette out on someone's back, hit someone in the head with a pay phone receiver or break a broomstick jabbing someone in the back....but I digress.

I'm an adult now--an adult with two small children. I'm not supposed to yell at drunken slobs for skeeving my friends and I out--or am I? Who's to say I can't still throw down (verbally only-I don't feel the need to physically harm anyone unless they pose a threat to my family)?

I feel pretty good this morning.


*That picture is from NYE 2005, and yes that is a Girl Scout shirt and sweater.