Captain's Orders

You can't teach an Old Dog new tricks...
Hence, I will never learn that going out drinking with Mark is folly beyond reckoning...
Worse- doing it 2 nights in a row is a recipe for disaster.

Some number of you Constant Readers of L2UJ might know that Thursday was our company All-Employee meeting. A twice-yearly shindig where we are informed of company news and policy changes, and othen stuff... Sometimes it's good- Event recaps and photo slide shows- and sometimes, well, not so much.
Tom Morgan.
That's all I should have to say to illustrate that point.

Anyway- After the meeting we adjourned to The Lemon Bar and proceeded to make a large dent in the supply of Captain Morgan in Neptune Beach.

I bailed around 8:45 and crept home...
Mark, Chris Hayes, Jamie Odum and Eric the New Guy, along with our guest drinker Tony "T-Bone" Surmonte stayed behind... Drinking.
I was home and adrift in the arms of Morpheus as they went from Lemon Bar, to Sliders, to The Ritz... Around 1:00 or 1:30 am Mark remembered that was a school night, so to speak... Chris, Jamie and Eric were taking Friday off... Mark, however, had to work, as did I.
I saw Mark early on Friday... Not pretty. He berated me for abandoning the effort so early... As I have told him many times-
"When you're dumb, ya gotta be tough."
I haven't lived this long without knowing when to cut and run...He needs to hear the branch creak every once in a while.

Last night I got a call...

"Hey man. Get down here to 11 South. I have someone I want you to meet."
Apparently he had met two girls and had been wowing them with his tales of drinking and debauchery in Italy and somehow had painted a picture of Yours Truly that was larger that life, if that's possible.
I came down to meet said flowers of feminity...

(Yes, I know the picture is a bit fuzzy... So was I, at the time... The Captain will do that to you...)
Cute, intelligent ladies... Didn't know why they'd be hanging out with Spongemark...

We drank for a bit longer, and of course I dazzled them with my wit and charm...
Here's where Mark went wrong...
They were married...
One of the girls' husbands showed up, and took her away from Mark's endless supply of Cosmopolitans, and, well... I took the other one home.
Heh.

Mark? He remained at the bar, chitchatting with some friend of Jim Ingalls and sipping a drink made with sour grapes...

Famous!