A Christmas Story

Ah, the holidays. Is there any better time to be in a confused non-relationship?

Christmas started with me phoning The Busker, who I had invited to keep me company at my friend C's for dinner, since he had absolutely no plans with any of his relatives in or out of town. Which already should have tipped me off. Nevertheless, he picked up the phone when I called to see what time I should pick him up, and his response was, "Oh, did I say yes to that? I thought I said no..."

The conversation that followed:
Me: "You said it couldn't hurt. Which I took as a yes."
He: "Oh. I thought it meant no. Well. I got invited to a bunch of dinners and I turned them all down, and I guess I figured this one would just disappear too."

I'm a little miffed, which means I don't talk a lot, and let him stick his foot further and further up his mouth.
"Well, I was kinda looking forward to not getting dressed and watching basketball all day. I guess I have to brush my teeth for this, eh?" He became more enthused when I agreed that a) he could finish watching basketball first, b) I would drive, c) he didn't have to talk to anyone and he was welcome to sit in a corner and play guitar all night and d) we didn't have to stay long. Now I know what you're thinking. Why bother? Just let him sit unwashed at home. Well, I could go on my own, but then I'd be stewing about it to my host and hostess all night. And that wouldn't be fair to them.

Oh and there's more. I was bringing my hosts a present and a bottle of wine, and I bought something for The Busker, because I figured he'd like it, even though I knew perfectly well he didn't buy anything for me because he "hates the commercialism of Christmas." Oh yes, and he has vowed never again to care about a woman. Whatever. (To quote his review of the movie King Kong: "And THAT'S what happens when you care about a woman.")

So I head over around 3, moderately pacified by The Busker's admission that, "It's not that I don't want to see you, it's the other people I'd rather not see." Anyway, I walk in tarted up and wearing my super sexy vintage Tragic 80s Hooker White Rabbit Coat (my gift to myself) and toss him a plastic bag with my few thoughtful gifties with an "I don't care if you don't like Christmas, I do, it makes me happy to give people things, so don't whine about it just shut up and enjoy it. It's no big deal anyway," attitude. Now, doesn't that give you the warm fuzzies already?

Well, turns out the gift goes over pretty well. I bought him a bottle of his favourite wine, and two small glasses (technically they're decorative votive candle holders, but they look similar to the tea glasses I have that he loves to drink red wine out of. He's got a whole manifesto on why you should drink wine out of stemless glasses. He has a manifesto about everything). At any rate, the glasses were a cheap find at Winners, less than $6 total, just in case he decided something expensive would involve too much responsibility - you know, having to take care of them and making sure your drunken rocker roommates don't accidentally knock them off the counter when they're doing a few lines by the sink. At any rate, he loves the glasses. Go figure. He insists we have a glass of coffee and Bailey's to break them in. All good. He even likes the fact that they're small enough to travel with, so when he finally travels the world as a famous rock star, he can stuff them in his backpack and haul them along.

Next is a smallish box to unwrap. He does and immediately sees the bubble wrap. "Hey! How did you know I love bubble wrap?" He's serious. Apparently it's one of his favourite things. He even wants to have a suit made out of the stuff. He plays with the bubble wrap for a while until he finally notices there was a CD in the box. He looks closely at it - "No way!" he says. "Aw, you're wonderful!" he whispers as he takes Christmas with the Chipmunks out of its case. Yes, this is his favourite Christmas album, and has been talking about wanting to track a copy down somewhere. Turns out for $8.99 Chapters will not only sell you the CD but ship it to your house. Who knew?

So now we're ready to roll. We get to the house and immediately our hostess puts everyone at ease. The Busker is handed a beer, and from here on in it's clear sailing. We have a great time, and C's dad (the only other guest) is a hoot. The turkey is perfect, the dinner is awesome, the wine flows, the conversation flows, everyone's laughing and having a great time - even The Busker. For someone who didn't want to talk to people at all he's holding his own in the loud drunken bantering around the table. And he's become quite enamoured with the menagerie - the house is home to two fair sized dogs and three cats, and two other large lab-like dogs were guests for the week. I have to admit, the animals were awesome.

Later, in the living room, C asks The Busker to make her guitar sound pretty, and he does such a good job that her (now very happily drunken) French Canadian dad keeps interrupting whenever he stops singing, urging, "No more talking! Play! Play!" Even though C has told us that her dad likes to go to sleep early, every time he gets up and leaves the room he comes back with another glass of wine. Around 11 pm he starts lobbying for a game of Trivial Pursuit. We are all very drunk, and fairly tired, but agree to a simple round of asking the questions out of the box until someone gets one question from each category right. Our host wins - easily. He's on the news... he knows a lot. C's dad doesn't get a single question of his own right, but successfully answers a couple of mine for me. Finally, around 1:30 am, Dad retires for the night - although he'll be up at 5:30 for the long day long drive back home. The Busker hasn't made any indication of wanting to leave despite his earlier hesitations, and now nobody's in a condition to drive, so C manages to find homes for us strays and puts us to bed.

There's coffee and bread and cheese (and Nutella) and oranges in the morning, and everyone's in a happy lazy day mood. When a discussion on relationships starts up, The Busker announces, "I've decided I need to marry a rich woman. I want to be a kept man." He looks at me and says, "Hey, if you start making serious money, I mean sure, you'll do, otherwise, you know, whatever, I dunno, I guess we can just keep doing this, whatever, thing, for now." Awww. Now isn't that what every girl wants to hear? How romantic. Although to be fair, this is the closest thing to a proposal I've ever had. Who knew that to find love all I had to be was rich? (and not in life experience either, but just in cold hard cash) Boy have I been going about things the wrong way.

Busk and I leave around noon, I drop him off at his place, and in the gray crisp hungover Boxing Day light, in that quiet moment between the end of the conversation and the beginning of the car door opening, he even smiles, looks sideways at me and thanks me for a "really great Christmas." Well there you go. A job well done. That's all I want. Now I can go to sleep happy.

- Falcon