Gaffes and I

I walk through the city feeling a little melancholy.
The city on a Friday night felt somewhat restless. Was it the liberation from the work week, or a celebration of the weekend? The air at the end of spring, which makes one feel the summer just a little, looked as if it were about to burst into tears.

Tomorrow's weather is rain.

When I looked up at the sky, clouds were hanging low. I felt a sense of sympathy, thinking that if someone were to breathe on them, the drops that had been gathering would fall. Because I felt like it was a little bit like me.

I glanced at my watch. It was six o'clock.

"Oh, I forgot to take it."
"Me too."

For a lover of alcohol, it is pathetic to forget something essential for a drinking party. I checked that I had time before the start and left the shop.

I walked empty-handed down the main street where people were coming and going. In the city, people heading out to the entertainment district, people heading home, and people whose destination I didn't know passed by and disappeared into the distance.

My destination was a convenience store. Among the convenience stores scattered everywhere, I entered the one I could reach in the shortest distance without hesitation. I headed straight for the small refrigerator shelf. I picked up a product from the display shelf without looking. I headed straight to the register and paid.

What I picked up was a nutritional drink, the representative of drinks you take before you drink. If I drink this, I won't get sick or have a hangover. It is an essential item for me, as I have to walk the dog every morning without fail, whether it's a weekday or a weekend.

I returned to the shop, immediately opened the bottle cap, and drank it all at once. I felt relieved then. Now I could drink as much as I wanted with peace of mind. (However, this doesn't always work. Spring is the dawn. The face becomes white as one gets drunk. So be careful.)

That said, I was the organizer of the drinking party that day. I reluctantly took on the role of organizer, which rotates among us. I am the type of person who would never be an organizer under normal circumstances. I want to drink with people I like. I don't want to pay for socializing. Selfish and stingy. I believe that is best for my mental health and have no doubt about it.

However, once I accepted, I had to fulfill my duties. Since I also had to act as the moderator and facilitator, I couldn't get wasted just because I drank a potion that made me invincible. I had no choice but to enjoy the alcohol while pacing myself.

A few beers, a sparkling wine. Plus a Smirnoff and a highball. While holding a new bottle, thinking I could still go on, I suddenly looked back at my past self.

Not at myself. But at the many gaffes I had made in the past—.

The day I told a nagging middle-aged woman she looked just like Rottenmeier.
When a bossy superior said to me, "Your attitude is a bit bad," and I replied, "It's a free-for-all today, isn't it?"
The time I told a sexual harasser, "You're seriously disgusting. Don't touch me."

I had also talked about past heartbreaks that no one had asked to hear. Come to think of it, the person I dated when I was young spent a long time in the bathroom. I always waited for him to come out of the bathroom. I wondered, isn't it usually the other way around? Would it count as a gaffe to have asked, "Hey, are you always pooping?"

I was still young back then.
To my naive self, alcohol was an accelerant. Both sudden anger and sadness spilled from my mouth without shame and without restraint. The many half-baked gaffes that couldn't even become tales of heroism weighed down my arms.

I gently placed the bottle I was holding in front of me. I won't make any gaffes today. Drinking too much is not good. Thinking that, I opened the bottle cap.

I poured beer into a glass. Beautiful foam trapped the golden liquid. I took the glass and brought it gently to my lips. As I tilted the glass, a stimulating deliciousness spread through my mouth. The bitterness of the beer running down my throat washed away my bitter memories. The half-baked gaffes of the past did not become seeds of laughter, nor did they bloom into flowers, but drifted in a golden sea in my stomach. The gaffes that are gradually being digested might run through my body and fly out of my mouth again.

Did I end up making any gaffes that day?
I don't remember much of what I said that day.

"What's wrong with calling an old hag an old hag?"
"Honestly, I'm not interested in that story."
"Sorry, but I wasn't listening at all."

This is standard operation. It's hard to call these gaffes. All the gaffes I can't remember must have dissolved into the alcohol and flowed into the Hakata River at night. By now, they must be drifting in Hakata Bay.

Having safely finished my role as the organizer, I swayed through the night and hopped to two more bars.

After leaving the third bar, I had an irresistible craving for ramen.
I parted ways with my friend and walked down the street alone, trudging along. There were no ramen shops to be found anywhere.

With no other choice, I tried hailing a taxi to go home, but none of the passing cabs had their 'vacant' lights on, so I let my shoulders slump in disappointment. I opened my phone and called a taxi using an app. I tapped the wrong location, and the taxi stopped on the opposite side of the road. I hurried across the intersection and got into the cab. It was 1:30 AM. I made it home safely.

Unable to suppress my craving for ramen, I boiled some water in a pot. As the water bubbled, I opened the package. I dropped the dried noodles in and waited two minutes. In the meantime, I put the soup base into a bowl. Once the noodles were cooked just right, I poured the boiling water into the bowl. I mixed the soup thoroughly and added the noodles. I slurped the noodles right there in the kitchen, lacking any manners. It was delicious.

I carried the ramen to the table and popped the tab on a beer. I drank more beer. The guilty pleasure of late-night ramen and beer began to fill the void left by my gaffe. As I slurped the noodles and drank my beer, I thought back on the day's events.

Once I got home, strangely enough, all I could do was reflect.

I thought about how that comment was unnecessary, or how my attitude might have been too arrogant.
I hate myself for becoming emboldened while drinking and not even realizing my gaffes at the time—today was no exception. Just as a single drop of water can cause a dark, gathering cloud to suddenly release a downpour, perhaps alcohol causes something I've been bottling up to fall like rain.

While thinking about such things, I decided that couldn't possibly be the case.

I thought about it calmly. My gaffes aren't limited to when I'm drinking. I make gaffes all the time, day or night. Alcohol just makes them more active. There's no point in reflecting.

They say that alcohol and gaffes reveal a person's true nature.

I remembered hearing that. If that's the case, then perhaps I've been living my life as my true self all along. Bare and exposed. Somehow, I felt that maybe gaffes aren't so bad after all. I'm sure this is just one of those realizations brought on by a late-night lapse in judgment, though.