That Stupid Thing

Yes, I'm glad that stupid thing over at Damai is over.

For the past few weeks and especially days leading to the event, I was asked by no less than 63 and a half persons if I was going to attend. Half, because the last person at the bar went - "Dooood, are you going...", when his phone rang. I then quickly walked away.

A couple of nights before the event and over dinner and while I was talking about the event to the young curious cousins, mom suddenly asked if she could go. That's when I almost choked on that stupid fish bone. I asked why she would want to attend something like that and she said, "Well, the last time I went it was nice". Bewildered now and still trying to register how my conservative, god fearing Protestant mother mother would even use the word nice to describe the same, I asked her when exactly did she attend the thing.

"Twice, I think", she said. "It was nice. Orderly. Not many people. Many years ago.", she continued.

And then it hit me. My mom went to the very first one and then attended the second time it was held. I now know I have a cool mom. I heard it was good then. Cheap and yes, very orderly. I wasn't in town and she never told me.

And so, being the nice son that I am, I quickly briefed her on how the event had morphed into something Satanic and evil. So evil that it would make whatever Sodom and Gomorrah offered in the days of antiquity, pale in comparison. I even showed her pictures from the last few events that I attended. Of course being very careful not to show her any pictures that might compromise my good person. And as she was watching the slides of men and women with the little they had on their backs and some none at all and the obvious drunken state they were all in, she cringed and asked why, if I was sane, would I attend such evil-ness.

I reassured her that I was not and that I was planning to chill at the beach instead.

And that's what I did. Our guests from Malaya were faboulous and I must admit I miss some of them now. Someone brought a guitar and we took our Becks and toasted to absent friends, old gods and to the seasons of mist. And we sang songs of praise to the seas, the sun, the moon and about the women and men we love and loved.

It was nice like that.