The Descent to Cougar-Land

            A couple of weeks ago my friend, M, convinced me to go out after work.  We had some margaritas before heading to a beer-friendly bar in downtown D.C.  I don’t remember what we were talking about exactly, but I know we were laughing and having a good time as we sat at the bar.

         The only thing that wasn’t too great was the young gentleman standing behind us who was clearly getting drunker and louder as the night went on.  I had been wearing a white jacket (gasp – after Labor Day) that I had hung over the back of my chair.  Well, Mr. Drunk Man kept putting his sweaty hand right on top of my jacket (I’m assuming to steady himself).  This not only annoyed me because of my jacket getting his sweat-germs on it but also because he was invading my personal space. 

            Finally, I had enough.  So when he put his sweat-germ hand on my chair for the one hundredth time I leaned back, knocked his hand off and pretended it was an accident.  This startled Mr. Drunk Man and made my friend, M, start laughing hysterically.

            He apologized profusely and I thought I had won.  But no, the plan backfired because now Mr. Drunk Man assumed he had the “in” to talk to us.  He was also super curious as to why M was laughing.

            We decided to be nice and talked to him and his coworker for awhile.  It was clear that this guy was very young, just graduated from college, at his first job, sweaty, incredibly drunk and somewhat stupid.  He wanted to know when we had graduated college. 

M and I just looked at each other for a second.  My friends and I are in these un-chartered waters of being almost thirty right now and it kind of freaks us out.  It was much more fun to answer the question, “how old are you?” with “22 – buy me a drink, he-he!” 

Anyway, Mr. Drunk Guy started guessing the year of our graduation with 2008.  We kept telling him to go lower until he got to 2001 and replied, “Whoa!”

“Does this make us cougars?” M asked me seriously.

            Then he turned to M and asked her how old that made us.  Trying to take advantage of Mr. Drunk Guy’s stupidity and increasing inebriation, she decided to lie.  “Oh well, we are only 28,” she said grandly.

            Yes, decreasing our age by that one whole year truly goes far in our quest to stay away from Cougar-land….