Dinner With Friends

My dinner with friends entry was spawned by... dinner with friends. This friend in particular, LD (female) has been a friend of mine for darn near close to 30-years. I was recently at her home and had dinner with her and her husband, both of whom are aware of my experiences.

We began discussing a specific situation that occurred involving LD and my other long-time friend, MCB (male). I don't recall the specific year, but in discussing it with LD, it was the late 1990s as it coincided with the demise of her first marriage. She was with a control-freak extraordinairre, a narcissist, and we hadn't spoken in several years except very, very rarely. This was a chance to reconnect with two of her closest friends in life, myself and MCB and an opportunity for her to meet the PEW.

Together, PEW and I prepare a really nice sit-down dinner with a couple of nice bottles of wine. MCB and LD arrived within minutes of each other and we all exchanged pleasantries and introductions, made some small talk and headed for the dinner table.

STEP-BACK: Prior to the children, PEW was a binge drinker. When she decided to tie one on, I knew of no one able to outdrink her. I previously spoke of how her demeanor changed if she had a drop more than 3 drinks. Nasty. Back to the story...

It wasn't long before I saw "the face." The face is the one that broadcasts to you that something is wrong and/or - she's had more than 3 drinks. It was during dinner. Keep in mind, I hadn't seen LD in about 5-years and immediately, my "spidey-senses" began to tingle and not in a good way.

Neither I nor LD could recall what specifically was said, but PEW was beginning to get abrasive and sarcastic with LD when the 3 of us were reminiscing. PEW's face actually started to turn red. It reached such a level of uncomfortability that MCB found a moment to excuse themselves. That's right - he recognized something was up and was going to pull LD out of the fire. I remember that they had barely wiped their mouths and they were leaving. I believe that myself, LD, and MCB had 2-glasses of wine each with dinner. I figure that by this time, PEW had about 5. I really lost count. She was escalating into a full blown rage and my dinner guests had evacuated.

A screaming match ensued. I remember telling her how incredibly embarrassed I was at her behavior. I remember yelling at her, "This is a dear friend of mine that I haven't seen in years and now I'll be lucky to see either of them for another 5-years after what you did tonight!!!"

Turns out PEW felt threatened by LD. PEW assumed she had ulterior motives after less than an hour of meeting time. It couldn't possibly have been simply that LD was isolated from the people she was most close to (friends and family) by her 1st-husband. Truth is, this was just a figment of her vivid imagination and immeasurable paranoia. I remember PEW telling me that she, "...didn't like the way she looked at you." The reality is that LD was reconnecting with all of her friends in the aftermath of her miserable marriage.

The blow-out got much, much worse.

PEW took a seat at the bar we had in the house at the time. From it, she withdrew a bottle of vodka and started swilling from it. I told her to knock it off. She didn't. With that, she tipped the bottle up and literally started chugging from the bottle of 80-proof Absolut Vodka. Angrily, I walked towards her and snatched the bottle right off of her lips and out of her hand. She took a swing at me but I was able to dodge it as I turned on my heels, walked into the kitchen and spiked the bottle into the sink. It exploded into a million little shards of glass and vodka was all over the kitchen floor. (It's a wonder I didn't lose an eye because it blasted right back into my face.)

PEW was practically incoherent and was slurring so much now that I couldn't understand her. However, she still clumsily barreled into the kitchen where I was, hit the vodka spray all over the floor and promptly fell on her ass into the vodka and glass shards. She fell hard.

I reached down to help her off of the floor because she was scrambling about and I was, believe it or not, afraid that she was going to seriously injure herself in that condition. She swiped at me again, missing, but I did manage to grab ahold of her arm, get her to her feet and into the living room. She was shrieking at the top of her lungs and with that... I walked out and went for a long drive.

Somewhere during this entire ordeal, she allegedly injured her pinkie-finger. This is one of her stories of where I abused her. As she would tell the story several times, though she was so intoxicated that she couldn't possibly really remember what transpired, I "broke her finger." No doctor visit. No police report. No arrest record. No nothing... more of the same fiction from her which feeds her delusions that she was systematically physically and mentally abused throughout the marriage.

I didn't see LD for quite a few more years after that dinner disaster. It was one of a great many things I sacrificed under the mistake belief that it would keep the peace. Fortunately, my long-time friends remained so. LD and MCB are two of my best and are still in my life, thankfully.

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