Well, here we are at the end of the year again! New Year’s Eve can honestly be kind of a letdown. For many, it marks the end of the holiday season and the beginning of a dark, joyless winter when you’ve resolved to join a gym. You want this last hurrah to go so well! Whether you’re hoping for the perfect night out, the perfect night in, or to connect with someone special, expectation doesn’t always meet reality. When that happens, it’s a bummer. So, I thought I’d share the story of my worst New Year’s Eve to date with you. Here we go!
I was 26 and with a guy at the time, who I’ll call Ted. Ted told me that his friend Jen had invited us to spend a relaxing New Year’s weekend with her. New Year’s Eve was on a Friday, and she wanted us to drive the five hours to her house after work that day. Maybe that should have been my first clue. Because driving five hours at night, in winter, when most people are drunk doesn’t sound like the start of a relaxing weekend to me.
I’d only met Jen once, but was told that she really wanted to spend some time with us. “She wants to take us sightseeing and to her favorite restaurant,” Ted had said. I mean, how sweet, right? I knew Jen was married with a couple of kids, but I wondered if she might be feeling a little lonely. And I do love sightseeing. So, I agreed to go.
We arrived at Jen’s neighborhood around 11:00 p.m. Traffic had been awful, and I was exhausted from making the drive after working all day. (By the last day of the year, all my PTO was used up and they didn’t let us off early like I’d hoped.) It seemed like a pretty nice area filled with somewhat stately homes. So, it really caught me off guard when we pulled into a driveway and a woman started beating on the car window. “GET THE FUCK OUT OF HERE!!!” she shrieked ominously. “RICK IS COMING!!!” Then she scurried away into the house.
Minute one, and I already wanted to just turn around and go home. I gasped. “Who the hell was that?! Are we at the wrong house? Who’s Rick?!”
Ted blinked. “I… I don’t know. But this is definitely the right address. Maybe they just want us to park in the street or something. I’ll move the car.” He did and we got out.
As I walked through the dark lugging my duffel bag, pillow under one arm, another car pulled up next to us. Four guys got out, clearly back from a night of imbibing. The drunkest one regarded me with confusion as we walked up the front steps side by side. The look on his face made me think of a high school friend’s favorite expression, “The wheel is spinning, but the hamster is dead.” I considered asking him if we were in the right place, but didn’t think it would do much good.
Why didn’t I just turn around and go back to the car, you ask? Demand that Ted call Jen and make sure we weren’t about to get murdered? I don’t know. I was still kind of young and also very tired. And part of me almost wondered if I’d fallen asleep and this was all a very weird, realistic dream. Whatever this situation was, I guess I’d decided to just lean in and hope a bed was waiting for me on the other side.
“Hey,” I said uncomfortably. Was this the dreaded Rick? Or maybe one of those other guys was Rick and this poor, drunk SOB was his next victim?
He nodded and we walked into the house together. I wasn’t sure why, but his friends were all hanging back a few paces. I’d hoped to see Jen waiting for us there, but it was eerily quiet and dark inside. I forget what Ted was doing at that moment, but he was honestly kind of useless when it came to most things. So, this is how I die, I thought, bracing myself for whatever horrors awaited.
Suddenly, all the lights came on and like 30 people jumped out yelling, “SURPRISE!!! HAPPY BIRTHDAY, RICK!!!”
“Oh my God! You guys got me so good!” Rick guffawed, doubling over. “I can’t believe it! I really am so surprised!”
I stood there wide-eyed and hugging my pillow like a five-year-old at her first pajama party. Odds are, I was WAY more surprised than Rick. Okay, now I was sure this was the wrong house. I’d started slowly backing away when a woman’s voice called out, “Ted! Amy! You made it!!”
Dammit. It was Jen, who I recognized from that one other time I’d met her.
“Heeeey,” Ted greeted her dubiously. “So, what is all this?”
Jen blinked. “It’s Rick’s surprise 40th birthday party. Remember? I sent an email to your Yahoo account explaining how all that relaxing weekend stuff was just a cover. Remember?”
“I don’t use Yahoo email anymore. I have Gmail now.”
“Oh… Oh, well. No big deal. You can put your stuff in the basement. You’ll be sharing the bunk beds with Beth and Anna. We had so many people who could stay the whole weekend that all the bedrooms are taken.”
Oh, right, I remembered suddenly. Jen’s husband was named Rick. For a moment, I was simply relieved to still be alive. Then the rage set in.
“You mean to tell me,” I hissed at Ted, “that in all the weeks you’ve been planning this visit, she never once mentioned that it was actually a surprise party?!”
Ted got that oh-God-here-we-go look on his face. “No! Look, it was an accident, okay?!”
“Ted, listen to me. I don’t want to stay here for a three-day weekend, sharing a bunk bed with strangers in somebody’s basement! I want to go home.”
“Shhhhh! God, don’t be rude! Just try to have fun, okay?! It’ll be fine!”
“Why were we invited to this?!” I snapped. “You didn’t know it was his birthday and I forgot his name was Rick! How many times have you even met him?”
“Maybe three times, including this one? I don’t know, okay?!”
“If I’d known it was his birthday, I would have at least brought a present,” I lamented. “And I would have changed my clothes!” I was still wearing my polo shirt and khakis from work, makeup fully melting off my face. My hair looked like something a toddler drew with brown crayon. Everyone else was roughly 35-55 years old and looking very fancy. I felt so out of place that I wanted to just fall through the floor.
“It’s fine,” Ted grimaced. “Just be cool, Jeez.”
(Okay, for the rest of this story, I’m just going to pretend Ted wasn’t there because I do not like him.)
Maybe I looked as tense as I felt, because someone offered me a drink.
“No, thanks,” I said tersely.
“You sure? We’ve got it all. Beer? Wine? A mixed drink?”
I sighed. “Um, maybe just some water or a soda?”
“OH.” The guy nodded knowingly. “I gotcha.”
“No, no. I don’t have a drinking problem. And you guys are welcome to enjoy yourselves. Drinking just isn’t my thing.”
“Okay, whatever.” The guy handed me a Coke and turned to a group of people who were already getting into some loud shenanigans.
I scanned the room and selected the oldest, most graying couple there to sit near. They were on the sofa, quietly watching Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve. That seemed more my speed.
“So, how do you know Jen and Rick?” I asked.
“We’re their scuba diving instructors,” the man answered.
“Yes,” said the woman. “We just got back from a dive trip to Belize. I’m still a little worn out from traveling, to be honest.”
Well, crap.
“Oh,” I said. “I saw a program on TV that took place in Belize once. It looks beautiful.” (Full disclosure: It was season two of VH1’s The Flavor of Love, starring Flavor Flav.)
“It really is,” the woman agreed. “And the weather is amazing this time of year. Have you ever been scuba diving?”
“No,” I replied weakly. “I can’t swim.”
They both looked at me somewhat pityingly. “Well, it’s never too late to learn.”
I nodded. “Oh, totally.”
The man asked what I did for a living.
“I work in an office,” I answered without much enthusiasm. It sounded so boring by comparison. “It’s for a company that makes aftermarket auto parts.”
I wondered what Jen’s little kids were doing that night, because I was sure I had more in common with them than anybody at that party. They were probably off somewhere watching Finding Nemo and eating snacks. Or already asleep. Lucky.
I rang in the New Year with the scuba divers. Then I slept in the basement with Beth and Anna. For what I think were the entire next two days, everyone sat and watched football, my least favorite activity. Every so often I’d go do jumping jacks in the bathroom to stave off blood clots. I didn’t have a smartphone yet and hadn’t brought anything to occupy myself. There was no sightseeing or favorite restaurant. I know there are way worse places to spend New Year’s than a nice suburban home, but I was seething.
Sometimes I wonder if I could salvage a situation like this better now than in my mid-twenties. I wish I could say that the weekend had some surprise redeeming qualities, but it was honestly just bad. I knew Jen hadn’t done this to me on purpose, and Rick and the other guests hadn’t done anything wrong. But it was just bad. I’m not sure what my takeaway from this experience is. Ask a lot of questions before agreeing to visit someone you don’t know? (How well did Ted know these people? Why did we need to arrive just before midnight? Had Ted checked his email lately? Was it anybody’s birthday?) Always bring a book? I hate surprises?
Ultimately, I guess it helped me better understand how I wanted to spend my time, and who I wanted to spend it with in the coming year. Maybe that’s the gift of a crappy New Year’s Eve. So, no matter how you spend it, as Oprah once said, “Cheers to a new year and another chance for us to get it right.” Happy New Year to you! I’m wishing you 12 more months of joy, good health, and only the best surprises.
