I work for a pretty social company. They often have drinks after hours in the office common area, just hanging out. They go to happy hours at local bars. They're friendly; I like that.

Wednesday night was our summer party (apparently we have two parties a year; I hear the Christmas party is formal. Most of the men wear tuxes.). The theme was "White Hot", and they gave out temporary tattoos for us to gain entrance. One guy put them across his knuckles, thug-style. One girl put them on her jeans. My guess is those jeans are now ruined. The event took place in a loft on the West Side, and the roof was open. It was a lovely evening with dancing, an open bar, and barbecue.

Around 9:30, I figured it was about time I started heading home, since it takes me an hour by subway and I was exhausted from traveling the day before (I'll write a Comic Con blog one of these days, really). So I started saying my good-byes, and everyone yelled and begged and pleaded for me to stay. I stayed until about 11pm, at which point I noticed one of my coworkers was devastatingly drunk. I noticed, because she fell all over everyone and knocked two glasses over onto the dance floor. So I called a car for her (luckily I had the company car info in my palm) and another coworker and I made sure she got in it okay. This was quite a feat, since she had fallen over in the elevator and literally crawled to the front door. She then took her shoes off, got up, and stumbled into two busboys who were having a smoke by the curb. I went to the bar next door to get her a plastic bag for the trip, just in case she needed it, and handed it to her after she crawled into the car and lay down with her bare feet against the window.

She had needed the bag after all. Unfortunately, she didn¹t use it. She had passed out in the car after we gave the driver her address in New Jersey (poor driver), and apparently, she awoke at some point and puked all over the car (seriously poor driver). She told me there was a big pile of sick on the floor. I hope that driver gave himself an enormous tip (our company has an account, but I¹m not sure how it works).

By this time, it was about 11:40, two hours after I had originally planned on going home. I finally got home after midnight, but was so wound up that I sat up in bed reading X-men comics until after 1am. The entire next day I was sitting at my desk, mostly asleep, just staring at my computer screen whenever my eyes were actually open. I know that events are usually cheaper when held on a weeknight (my wedding could have been a third the price if we¹d had it on a Tuesday instead of a Saturday), but to then expect everyone to come in to work the next day is just mean. At least open at noon or something. Come on.

Hopefully, the Christmas party will be held on a Friday.