Abandon all hope, ye who enter the Christmas party

Yesterday was off the hook - we had errands to run, we had a Forced In-Law Interaction, and I wrapped presents and assembled Joey's gift until about midnight last night. And that doesn't even include all the drama that bled over from Saturday night's Christmas party.

As a little background, there is this guy that works for Joey and Malcolm named Al. Al is their service salesguy - he sells contracts to people for maintenance and repairs on their building. Al is also a humongous pain in the ass. Seriously, people - he acts either like he's on the rag or a huge drama queen all the damn time. Not to mention that he cheats on his wife constantly and is also a Class A Liar. The guy wouldn't know the truth if it bit him on the ass, either personally or professionally. Thankfully a year ago Malcolm moved Al out of the Richmond office and down to our Norfolk office and the daily drama dissipated.

Al is married to Jennifer. Jennifer is a trainwreck and a half. She makes Malcolm's wife Paula, who I've complained about here numerous times, look like a class act.

Two years ago, Malcolm hosted a big dinner party at one of the city's best restaurants - it was a joint venture with our friend David's company since we all do business together. Things went along pretty nicely until Jennifer seated herself on Malcolm's lap and proceeded to show everyone her pantyless shaved cooter. On purpose. Hilarity ensued, a fight broke out, and we ended up being asked to leave the restaurant. The police got involved later on in the evening and there were arrests made (thankfully Joey and I got the hell out of there and took a cab home before all the major shit went down). Over the next few days the drama continued, with Al threatening to quit, Malcolm threatening to fire him, and me threatening to kill everyone involved because I was tired of all the bullshit.

Last year, everyone was pretty subdued and we had a nice time. By that point, everyone had made nice and apologized to everyone else, so it seemed like we'd all moved on. We even had the same group go to Cabo last year and for the most part everyone got along just fine.

Saturday night started out innocently enough. Cocktails from 6 - 9 PM and then whatever else rolled along afterwards. There was plenty of great food and the drinks were flowing.

And then Al and Jennifer showed up. About an hour after they got there, she cornered me and was so fucked up that I couldn't understand what she was saying but she was almost hysterically crying. Then later on, allegedly she was doing the Gator in the middle of the floor in her black cocktail dress. See what I mean about her being a class act?

Around 10:30 we were still in the party room having a big time - a few of the guys that I work with happened to be down there and they joined us - when I noticed that on the patio outside the party room there seemed to be some heated discussions going on between David, Yvonne, and Al. Apparently, Al had grabbed Yvonne's ass - she told him to stop - and then he did it again. Big mistake. David, you see, was a three-time Golden Gloves boxing champ so he won't hesitate to throw a punch. Not to mention he is very protective of Yvonne and their daughter.

Things quickly went downhill. Joey went outside and tried to get Al to apologize - Al refused to, claiming he hadn't done anything. Now, I am here to tell you that I have known David and Yvonne for 15 years and there is no freaking way that either one of them would make up a story. They're not those kind of people. Al, on the other hand, has a long track record of being an insufferable lying douchebag so it was pretty evident that something had happened and he wasn't going to fess up.

And this is where it gets worse. Joey asks Al to apologize and he won't. Joey tells Al to be a man and take responsibility for what he's done and he won't.

And then Jennifer tried to hit my husband. Not once, not twice, but three times.

By the time I got outside to find out what was going on, all I saw was Joey standing there red-faced and angry, Al yelling at Joey, and Jennifer in a curled up ball of hysterical sobbing. I walked toward the group when the bouncer stopped me.

"That guy, he's outta here," he said. Referring to my husband.

What? Did he hurt someone? No, the bouncer said, but he's really the only reasonable one in the whole group that I think I can get out of here...before the cops show up. I then grabbed Joey by the arm, told him it was time to go, and we caught a cab home. Just as the cops pulled up. The bouncers thanked us for trying to help, thanked us for leaving without giving them a hard time, and the head guy gave me a little wink and said, "Don't take this the wrong way please - we're just trying to save him from getting in trouble with the cops since he really didn't do anything wrong. You guys are good."

I was upset. Pissed. Embarrassed. Lord knows I hope the guys from work didn't catch on to what was going on, or I'm going to be the talk of the office next week. Goody. And honestly, I was a little upset with Joey - yes, he was trying to do the right thing and have everyone make nice, but when you're dealing with a bunch of drunk hotheads sometimes it's better off just to walk away. Sometimes the country boy comes flaming out and he was all about defending David and Yvonne's honor, not really thinking about how with this group there isn't going to be any civilized conversation involved. I think he realized that once we were in the cab on the way home, and apologized the rest of the ride home. And I was just relieved that we got out of there while we did.

Yesterday, Al called David and Joey each about 20 times. Neither of them have anything to say to him. Al told Malcolm that he had apologized to David before Joey got involved. Not true. The lying continues.

Sigh. I'm done. Honestly, I hate all the drama, I hate being embarrassed. And I'm not going to any more functions where Al and Jennifer are invited, because I'm not playing that game. So you know what? I'm laying down the ultimatum. They are GONE. I am not dealing with their BS anymore. I don't give a shit if Al sells $3 million in repair work a year and it makes a lot of profit. The guy is a fucking loser. And they'd be better off without him.

Ahem.

Today is a fairly busy day. We have one last-minute gift we forgot to get (oops). Maybe a quick grocery run. And tonight is our annual tradition of going downtown to see the lights and then out for burgers and shakes. A strange tradition, but it's all ours. This year my nephew Steve and his wife Yancey will join us and I'm super excited out this. Not just to see them, but because I know that chances are good that all of us will be wearing underwear and there probably won't be any fistfights.

Have a good one, y'all.