THE LIFE OF THE PARTY IS OFFICIALLY DEAD

In case I've never made the fact clear as a bell ... I'm one lazy sonofabitch.

I like to sit back and chill rather than get up and do things.

I prefer television to parties.

So last night, when I had to go to this volunteer appreciation party for this major golf tournament that's in town, my first reaction was "What about 'Fear Factor'??"

The party started at 7 p.m. By the time I left work and got home, it would have been 5:30. I would have had to leave at 6:15 to go to the party by 7.

So I suggested to my co-workers that at 5 p.m., we just saunter down to the bar/restaurant that's on the first floor of our workplace.

That was met with many hoorahs and tipping of imaginary drinks into their mouths.

So we go to the bar, sit down and drink.

And drink.

And drink.

It suddenly occurred to me that we still had to drive about 20 miles to the party.

So I chose Sonya to be our designated driver because she had the cleanest car.

(These days, my rationale is thrown to the wind after three beers)

We pay our tabs and all squeeze into Sonya's car.

Sonya likes two things ... driving fast and Mariah Carey.

LOUD Mariah Carey.

For 20 miles, she's driving at breakneck speeds, weaving in and out of traffic on the interstate while this goddamned song "Butterfly" is on repeat at 120 decibels.

I chose to express my dissatisfaction by screaming "WILL YOU TURN THAT GODFORSAKEN SHIT DOWN AND SLOW THE FUCK DOWN?!?!" several times to no avail.

But hey ... at least the car was clean.

We get to the party in one piece and walk inside.

Keep in mind...this is for a golf tournament that I was FORCED to volunteer for. As an ambassador to our city, I was told it would be in my "absolute best interest" to be seen as a volunteer here.

So I'm already a bit pissy about the whole thing.

Combine that with the fact that it's a golf tournament ... a professional PGA golf tournament ... and I absolutely ABHOR golf.

I've played golf one time in my life. I was nine years old. I got frustrated with the goddamned windmill on the course, threw my clubs across the green and never played again.

So I'm not happy about this event that I'm having to spend my Monday night, Thursday and Friday at.

We get there and one of those fake country club 50 year-old women with more facelifts than birthdays is giving us our nametags.

"Hi Sweetie," she greets me with a plastered smile on her face. "What's your name?"

"Puddin' Tane," I belched. "Ask me again and I'll tell you the same."

(Did I mention I was kinda drunk at this point? Hmmm? Well, I was)

She found my little ignorant joke hilarious and laughed for an inordinate amount of time. Obviously she was drunker than I was.

We get our nametags and it's time to mingle.

I'm there with three women.

We're not the greatest of minglers by any means. Out of the four of us, I'm probably the best mingler and I'm more concerned with finding the bar to keep my buzz on rather than chatting up a pro golfer who I've never heard of.

Just then a pro golfer who I've never heard of is ushered over to our little group of anti-social drunken vagabonds and introduced all around by yet another drunken hoity-toity country club spent piece of used jet trash.

"Hi guys, this is Tiger Schwartz," the woman says as we all shake Mr. Schwartz's hand. I purposely gave him a limp fish handshake to insinuate that I didn't really give a shit to be there.

At that point, Schwartz commandeers the conversation, talking all about golf and his love for the sport.

I'm desperately fighting the urge to knee him in the balls, just to get a chuckle out of my co-workers.

He babbles on and on about birdies and chirpies and pigeons and God knows what else. I lost interest in him before he was introduced to us.

I excuse myself to go to the bar and find someone a bit more interesting to talk to like Henry Heineken.

I hook up with Henry and drink in his delicious yet stout goodness.

Standing at the bar, guzzling my firewater like it's nobody's business, a guy leans over and introduces himself. For the life of me, I can't remember his name.

Later on, he was pointed out to me by someone a bit more knowledgable about the sport than I that he is one of the favorites to win the tournament. I tried to act impressed but failed miserably when I yawned while this was explained to me.

Nothing really earth-shattering happened. A number of the golfers were introduced to us by some lady on a microphone and we all had to applaud politely as they waved to the audience.

At one point, I had my co-workers doing quiet "Oooooos" and "Ahhhhhhhs" every time another was announced like we were impressed with these nobodies. It was cracking us up anyway.

After two more beers, I was now at my five beer stage. These days at five beers I get really stupid.

Five beers make me think I am the funniest, sexiest, most irresistable man in the room.

Like I said ... I get really stupid.

It was close to 8:00 and I gathered up my posse which wasn't hard to do because they were still standing in the same spot they'd been standing in since we walked into the room and told them I was ready to go home.

They were too.

We get back in the car, crank up the Mariah and head back to town.

Twenty miles.

Twelve minutes.

One pint of urine in my pants.

I bought the new Barenaked Ladies disc yesterday at lunch.

And I am in LOVE, LOVE, LOVE with the new song "War on Drugs" on that disc.

My God...what a beautiful tune.

If you're the type of person who still downloads songs without a care in the world like myself, download that bitch.

I can't really vouch for the rest of the disc as I haven't heard it all so I can't tell you to run out and buy it.

But download that one song.

It has to be the absolute best song ever written about a paranoid schizophrenic.

Then again, my ears are still ringing from the Mariah Carey assault.

I'll take the sounds of forks scraping cookie sheets over that shit.