[Dace]

There are some rules when it comes to office nights out. Experience distilled into wisdom purer than the alcohol consumed. Despite the smooth nature of the advice though, for some reason the booze always seems easier to swallow.

You can’t drink when you’re asleep and you can’t be expected to stay awake for long when you start discussing your job. The first rule is no shop talk. People know what the work is like. They experience it too. They have all the same moans. Their gripes are no different from yours. Being the first rule it’s broken soonest. These people, your colleagues, all you seem to have in common is the place you spend a third of your life slowly dying in. Conversations start slowly. You need to talk about something. You decide to talk about work for just a little bit. Long enough to figure out something else to discuss. Maybe the football. Maybe not. Your plan, everybody’s plan, goes awry. Moving between groups all that’s discussed is work. Any time somebody tries to change the topic somebody else drags it right back. This goes on all night.

The boozing also goes on all night. Caution, not just your drinking arm however, needs to be exercised. Rule number two; don’t drink too much. This rule isn’t so much broken, more ignored. After all “too much” isn’t really a quantifiable amount. That’s what you tell yourself on the way to the bar anyway. Tell yourself repeatedly. At least once per journey. Eventually the distance from here to the bar gets greater. Zig zagging your way there takes longer than it used to. Then the journey becomes instantaneous. Then the licensing laws renders any journey you may wish to make to the bar pointless.

Hangovers are unpleasant but over-indulgence isn’t the only thing you can regret the next day. The final rule is don’t be a sleaze. So long as the previous rule remains intact this one tends not to get broken. The flashbacks come with the shakes as you’re lying awake, suffering in bed the following morning. Meaningful eye contact. Declarations of intent. Possessive embraces. All unwanted advances. All from you.

Although you feel like dying experience tells you that, sadly, it won’t happen.