Would You Like Some Rain For Your Parade, Sir?

Yesterday was kinda rad. I was killing it in meetings. I was supposed to call the cute girl after work and then I got home and there was a pound of coffee on my doorstep from my neighbor that works at Starbucks. So, it's going great as I let myself into my apartment and then my neighbor takes a deep inhale off of his smoke and says "Hey, dude."

I turned and replied "What's up?" as I held my new coffee closely to my body and was teeming with anticipation of drinking the shit out of it Saturday morning.

"I started drinking again," he said "I got suspended from work and maybe fired and now I want to call that chick again to tell her that I'm sorry."

We had both cut back on our drinking, coincidentally, a week or two ago. He was drinking Gimlets at 8:30 in the morning and crying to me. Grown man crying is so uncomfortable.

I've done it. I know a man can be driven there sometimes. Christ, when I was going through my divorce I cried while watching Star Wars: Episode III and also during a Simpsons episode. It fucking happens. Anyway, he's been doing it a lot and he's 50 and has kids. I mean, there comes a point when you've got to take an assessment of the situation and realize that there is not a time and place to make a habit of cashing checks at a bar in the afternoon and drinking a gallon of vodka that comes in a plastic bottle at night. That wasn't me doing that, by the way. I have excellent credit and use direct deposit for my checks. I also only drink vodka from glass bottles and preferably with a cork.

Anyways, I started firing back at him "Dude. Number one. Start alternating those beers with fucking water. Number two. Eat something. I've got some food in my house and you can have it. Number three. You know that you are making it fucking worse by drinking that shit and you shouldn't have a drink until you have resolved all the toxic shit that you've had in your head. Down times are the worst times in the world to fucking drink."

He lost interest at that point as I stood there in disbelief of all the shit that had just come out of my mouth. It was all the right things rather than "Fuggit, dude. Let's booze."

So, he went back inside and I was feeling kinda awkward and it totally ruined my free coffee buzz. Just then, my ten year old neighbor was cruising by and yelling to his dad that he was bored. So, like a succubus that feeds on youthful exuberance, I had him over for some xbox time. We played some Rock Band and I let him play my Kozik guitroller and we were having a blast. Then his "girlfriend" came over and they nudged me out of the game to talk to his dad for a bit about high school sports. High school sports is the worst topic EVAR. I'm almost to the point of telling him that that topic is off limits, but he feeds me, so...Anyway, he went and grabbed me a Chile Colorado burrito that is off the chain for distracting his son so that he could have some dad time. Totally good tradeoff. I got a child's outlook on life and fed and he got to troll facebook. That , my friends, is true symbiosis.