The house had a dirt floor garage underneath, which I believe the large pit and hand lotion bucket was situated amongst the shadows. I was distracted by Count Dracula (dressed in the full garb, minus the dress pants, which were replaced casually by board shorts), who was grabbing a beer noisily from the fridge beside the couch.

It's amazing as to what conversational topics can change to in such a carefree environment. An example of this was T's discussion of an acquaintance of hers that supports the use of sexual stimulators. T was not only given the low-down on vibrator etiquette, but she also learnt that this individual's blue piece of hardware (no pun intended) was so powerful on its highest setting that it could easily move across a flat surface. I was picturing the demonstration of such a feat: a large, controlled space is cleared at a discreet area of a workplace; T's friend places 'bluey' lovingly on the starting line and checks its power level. Likewise, a competitor is placed beside ol' bluey and all neccessary race bets are taken.

A live telecast of such an event would kick the Melbourne Cup's tukhus, that's for sure.

T was already well on her way to becoming pissed. In fact, I am pretty sure that she had a date with a Bailey's bottle prior to meeting up with me at this party. Once the vodka and tequila made an appearance later though, everyone had caught up and were either 'dancing', pestering the DJ to teach them 'how to do their thang', or realising how nice vodka and Whizz Fizz tastes. T likes to dance. In fact, I am pretty sure that she brings me along to these parties to make her dancing look better.

Meanwhile, in another room my other friend D had already polished off a whole bottle of tequila with her fellow drinking partner, P, and was saying hello to the tree outside her bedroom window in between many a giser of vomit. Everyone thought that she was down for the night, as her witch's cossie was becoming as fragmented and colourful as her candy stripe stockings.

Later when T, I and about three other people were lying on the bed however (in a strictly platonic nature, mind you), a dark figure appeared at the doorway and knelt next to D's slumped form. He was trying to be a 'nice bloke', the typical come on which apparently works in a room of drunken females dressed as witches and devils (I, the latter). The Coach (whose title shall make sense later), checked that D's vital signs were in order and that the bottle was well and truly pried from her lifeless fingers (I remember her attacking me when I was checking up on her later...she wanted my drink even though she was semi-conscious). Proud and overly confident, the Coach joined us all on the bed, making out that he too was too drunk to remember how tricky things like legs and arms work. Then, things started to get interesting. T and the Coach starting getting busy. I suddenly realised what was beginning to happen on the bed (which I wasn't involved in at all) and my legs and arms remembered what their purposes were.

"F*^% this!" I screamed, jumping from the bed containing the limbs of ghouls and creatures of the night.

As I was about to make the classiest exit as possible from such a scene, a coarse, yet familiar voice tore through the air.

"T...! What the hell are you doing? Do you even know who this guy is?"

It was the voice of D. There she was, the witch holding desperately on to the window sill (which was keeping her semi upright) whilst lecturing T and the Coach on the importance of monogamy. Hideously embarrassed by the scene, the other partiers in the room exited to drink more, pee in cups, dance, or whatever made their fancy.

"How old are you anyway?" demanded D of the Coach.

We all heard a muffled reply. Everyone later thought that he said 21, which was fine by me because it was dark and everything was quite hazy. D wasn't convinced.

"What? How are did you say you were?"

"29".

"WHAT???"

We all started to laugh and taunt the Coach because T is younger than we are (which is a tad younger than 29, that's for sure kiddies).

So yes, it was all very amusing. Apparently a whole lot of other sordid affairs took place that night, such as an attack of the girl with the fluoro orange eye shadow who wanted to 'make friends' with two of my other friends (who later retreated together to be alone...one of them was wearing my devil horns and I didn't want to know what was going on there). I am not quite sure what went on that night with T and the Coach. I am pretty sure that it was enough for him to be obsessed with her though because he wouldn't leave us alone all night because he was trying to woo her back into his arms. T made it pretty clear that the shop was closed for the night, so the Coach took two Es and found a new sense of love in dancing with a pink bath towel for the rest of the night and well into the morning. I am pretty sure a puppet was also on the dance floor at one stage, but no one has confirmed the validity of such a memory at this point in time.

The Coach came down and lay next to me on the floor the next morning whilst the others in the room were recovering and T was in the bathroom. He still had the beloved pink towel with him and he waved it about whilst he told me about his lucrative career as a kiddie's tennis coach. Let me point out that by about this time, the alcohol had worn off well and truly and this 29 year old looked at least 35. But oh, was he good at telling stories.

The story that beat the one about his father who died of AIDS (who was later brought up again in another story as being very much alive at this point in time), was to do with Poms and Dope (actually two types of dope, him and the other, that illegal, grassy-looking stuff). The story basically went that as an eighteen year old lad (and believe me, he was embarrassed about the age gap, but obviously not *too* much, as he still liked to wave that towel about in our general directions) he went into a club and asked some seedy bloke if he knew where he could get some dope. The bloke said "Yep, come with me", as they both exited what later turned out to be some sort of gay bar (convoluted, I know, but I am paraphrasing the primary source here). Anyway, they walked down the road and the burley Pom stuck a can in Coach's hand. "Now, you have to do that store there as payment", he growled at Coach.

Coach looked at the can. He then looked at the large Pom and then at the shop before him. He then remembered what sort of establishment this deal was made in. Then he made a decision.

He ran as fast as his little tennis-loving legs could carry him. He was only visiting Manchester, so he pretty much chucked a Gump and just ran until he hit a brick building that turned out to be the place that he was staying in with his homosexual/heterosexual/asexual/whatever father.

Shaking with fear and drenched in two types of sweat (the gay biker's and his own), Coach opened the can and peered inside.

Apparently the can was loaded with that grassy stuff. Knowing that he had come out on top of it all (unless there was a part two of the story where the biker found him and did something to him that resembled the content of a Kubrick film), he locked himself in the bathroom and smoked all of that dope. Apparently he didn't finish until the sun came up.

Yes, he had high hopes and great expectorations the next day.

Well, after about five stories similar to that (which all conflicted in every other way except for their entertainment value), we all decided that the fitting thing to do would be to make a tasteful exit whilst Coach was down back having a cone break with many people, including eye shadow girl.

It was also at this party that T introduced me to Wheelie Bin Syndrome and its effects on the human species. Enjoy :-)