I don't think I have seen a more perfect description of embarrassment. I went over to my girlfriend's place to celebrate with her family since she called me that her father just got a car and they were having a party.
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Usually, I avoided her house because of her brothers who made it a point of duty to attempt to get my contact every time they saw me. They were two persistent folks, and the fact that both of them came to try their luck every single time made me resolve that they planned to make a mess of me.
Thankfully, I wasn't the only person who had arrived when I got there, my friend stood outside looking out towards the roads as if waiting for someone. The minute she set eyes on me, she ran over and threw herself on me.
It was actually quite strange for this particular friend of mine to admit that she needed support, so I held on to her.
To be honest, when I saw the reason for her sudden reliance, I was embarrassed on her behalf.
Her father, one beer in hand, was shouting at the top of his voice with a couple of men who were as drunk as he was. But of all of them, I think he had had the most drinks.
I took her inside the house so she could take her mind off but from the kitchen where we were helping her mother do vegetables for salad, I could still hear his voice, loud and clear.
When I was asked to go out and wait tables, I saw him lying in the car while his friends emptied wine, after wine on his body. I was forced to wonder if he was the first person in his lineage to get a car. And it wasn't even a Mercedes Benz or a Porsche, it was just a Toyota Acura.
I wondered if that car would ever start again, especially with the level of alcohol that had gone into it.
The next time I saw her father, he was sitting on the floor in the doorway holding the hand of one half-dressed lady who kept blushing incessantly.
It was a public place for God's sake. I wondered how he thought his wife would feel. It was probably the reason she had not come out throughout the day. She was just in the kitchen, silently hacking away at vegetables that never seemed to have an end.
That incident alone made me never crave alcoholic drinks or even want to know how the state of drunkenness feels, and it happened in my early teens. I cannot forget how embarrassing the situation was on that day.
To be frank, I didn't even know her father used to take alcoholic drinks, and as she walked me to take a vehicle home, she said he was a drunkard. To me, he was an unapologetic drunk.
The funny part is that I didn't see my accosters on that very day. None of them hung around the house to face that embarrassment. Their mother said that as soon as they got a plate of food and their drinks, they vanished. I would have done the very same if it were me. Who would want to stick around for a public show of disdain for yourself and your family?
I felt bad for his wife most of all. The way he was dancing in public with other women and touching them inappropriately was the height of it for me. No matter what, he shouldn't have gotten himself that drunk. Or at least he shouldn't have thrown a party open to everyone.
If he had done it with his family behind locked gates, it would still be fun with the food, drinking, dancing, and all but the embarrassment would have been contained by people who know and love him.
I knew that there was no way that incident wouldn't bring trouble to the family. My friend told me in church on Sunday that her mother had refused to ride in that car to church and neither did she. Since it was the car that made the man make a public disgrace of his family, her mother vowed not to ride in it.
I was angry that she had spent all those hours on her feet to make the party go smoothly yet she wasn't going to benefit anything in the long run.
It is possible they settled their issues but just like me, the memory will forever be imprinted in my mind.
It is not an incident I would love to experience, ever again. I don't have a thing against alcohol but except you can drink it in moderation, I advise my friends and close ones against it.