Last night, I made my Thanksgiving specialty, which involves marinading red grapes in red wine overnight (or longer), draining them, and then coating them in white sugar. Yum! Of course, I never buy good wine to do this, only big jugs of five dollar swill (Carlos Rossi, to be exact). After drowning the grapes in the wine and sealing up the bag I realized I had half a jug left. Mr. Husband and I had already split a bottle of wine earlier, and at this point ol Carlos was looking pretty tasty.

Well, I learned my lesson last night. When I woke up my ass hurt and when I went to go pee there was a ferret in the bathtub. Never again, heh heh. (At least not this week.)

Which is what I said last time, probably about five or six years ago. This happened right around Thanksgiving too. My friend and I went in on some “Paisano” and began drinking it out of the jug at his place, like we were some kind of pirates or something. Once we finished, my friend and I decided to take a stroll around, which always sounds like a great idea when you’re at a certain level of trashed.

Since I lived on the edge of downtown, we quickly ended up at Seattle Center. I, being relatively new to town, didn’t realize than the Center closed at a certain time. To me, it just looked like a big fun park.

“C’mon,” my friend said. “I’ll show you some cool stuff.” He took my hand and we ran to a large statue, which I haven’t been able to find in all the times I’ve been there since.

“I don’t feel very well,” I said. “I’ll be right back.” I made my way behind the statue and subjected my friend to the unpleasant sound of someone who’s had too much to drink. Cheap wine splattered everywhere, and it is fortunate that I had a predeliction for wearing black clothes at the time. When I re-emerged from behind the statue I was feeling much better, even though my hand was bleeding again. I had cut it earlier at his apartment when I tried to make a ring out of the empty wine jug’s handle.

We wandered around stuporously a little while longer until we came upon an area that was undergoing construction.

“Cool, a ladder!”

“Yeah…” I was tired at this point, though still in a cheerful mood. I didn’t see what the big deal about the ladder was. My friend walked over to it and picked up one end. It was one of those heavy duty fluorescent orange jobs that probably extends to forty feet or more.

“Well, come on!” I dutifully walked over and picked up the other end that still rested on the ground. “Here we go!”

We set off at a brisk march, singing songs from “Man of La Mancha,” a passion we discovered we had in common shortly after we met a couple of months earlier. We were having a marvelous time (though I didn’t know where we were going), until we had a flashlight stuck in both of our faces.

“Where are you two going?” A couple of chubby, middle-aged security guards stood in front of us, exuding all of the borrowed authority they could muster and looking very pleased to have something to do.

I was petrified; for all of my fighting and trouble-causing, I had thus far been lucky enough to avoid scrapes with the cops. And to my seventeen-year-old self, these guys looked authentic enough to me. My friend, sensing that I was frozen, became our spokesman.

“We’re just out taking a walk!” he replied to the rent-a-cops.

“Is that your ladder, there?”

“Yes it is. We’re just on our way home.”

“Your ladder, huh? Looks like it says ‘property of Seattle Center’ on it to me.”

“Heh heh.” My friend was remarkably jovial and cool about this situation, I thought.

“Why don’t you to put the ladder down.” We did so and left it balanced upright on its side. One of the guards began talking into his little radio while the other one kept his eye on us. My friend stepped in front of me, and looked into my eyes. He was so close I could feel his breath on my face; he spoke quietly to me so the guards couldn’t hear him.

“Okay. Take my hand.” I nodded and extended my little paw which had gone cold with fear. He took it and held it tightly. “Now, I’m going to count to three.” I was so intoxicated I was having trouble seeing where this was going, but I put all of my faith into him because I was grateful that one of us had a plan. “And when I count to three, we will run far away from here. Okay?” I nodded. What a great plan.

We were off. I was glad I had recently quit smoking, because we must’ve run about a mile to get away from the guards, the ladder, and Seattle Center.

“You better run!” one of the guards called out behind us.

“They’re on their way!” The one with the radio said, meaning the real police. I could hear them laughing as we disappeared into the dark.

I fell in to bed that night, sober and relieved. I vowed not to follow my friend blindly like that anymore. However, though he got us into that mess, to his credit he also got us out of it safely.