The Tea Party

A Hen Party

where they serve wine

As a young one, and newly married, I found life somewhat boring. My neighbor invited me to go with her to an afternoon party. It was called a tea party, she said.  It’s just a bunch of friends and neighbors getting together for card games and monopoly. I asked if she was sure it would be okay because I had not received an invitation. She assured me that it was fine because her sister was having the party and she could take anyone she wanted to.  So we went to the party.  They had card tables set up and cards and games and women were already playing cards when we arrived. It seems the drink of choice that afternoon was wine and not tea. I don’t recall even seeing a teapot.  I wasn’t too keen on drinking wine, but I didn’t want to come across looking like a geek, so they served me a drink of wine. It was horrible, but I kept sipping on it.  The music came on and the laughing kept getting louder and louder. Someone refilled my empty glass, so I sipped on it. The card games did not seem very serious to me. Someone refilled my glass. As time wore on, I also began to see the humor in everything. Someone had refilled my glass. We had so much fun that day. I finally realized it was time to go home. My husband would be coming home from work and I had to get there before he did. I didn’t think he needed to know what I had been doing. The party was breaking up and she took me home. My husband came home on schedule that day.  I’m trying hard to act and look as normal as I could, but the wine had turned me into a cackling hyena.  When he told me there had been a traffic jam at First street and Lincoln Ave, I went into hysterics. He said, “that isn’t funny, what’s the matter with you?” I told him it was the way he said it that made it funny.  Now, I thought I had said something extremely funny, so I laughed real hard again. It was at this point, he gave me the breathalyzer test, meaning he took a sniff of my breath.  “What the hell have you been drinking?” he asked.  I told him that I had gone to a tea party, and had been drinking a little tea.  This was followed with more peals of laughter.  He said he suspected someone had spiked the tea. So I cracked up again, I thought he was hilarious. He then got into police-mode and began to grill me. Where was this party? Who drove you to the party? Who drove you home from the party? Who was at this party? I answered all the questions between spasms of laughter. I fell asleep on the couch. I have this old diary, a journal of my memoirs.