… just maybe the police.

Even tho it’s a day late, a Halloween story is in order today, I reckon. Though this actually occurred in the summer, not at Halloween, but it’s a haunted house story (in a manner of speaking) so it counts. (It’s also YET ANOTHER drinking story, but all I can say to that – again – it was the ’80s, that’s what we did, blah blah blah. Heh.)

Anyway, onto the story. I might have told this one before but it’s always worth telling again since it’s the only time in my life I truly almost was arrested.

Normally I was one of those people who could have several drinks or beers and conduct myself just fine, or at least well enough not to embarrass myself to death. Back in my partying days, I could hold my liquor usually. Or at least had the sense not to get plastered somewhere where it mattered if I made an idiot out of myself.

There were a handful of such occasions during high school and college days, however, when I had no business being out in public. Most unfortunately, those rare occasions were always the ones when friends would decide they were going to (wherever) and taking me along, which was always a big mistake – and usually I protested beforehand, because there was always still enough sense left to know that I didn’t need to be going somewhere, so it wasn’t like they weren’t warned – but sometimes they took me anyway.

On one of those occasions, I got dragged 20 miles away to the next town and the walk-in theater. (Yes, I specify walk-in because we didn’t have one in my town – we had an old and decomposing drive-in, and another drive-in just across the river on the other side of the neighboring town which was way cooler, better sound, and a topnotch snack bar.)

First bad sign, which should have been obvious to anyone who knew me – it was a peppermint schnapps night and there was an empty half pint bottle as evidence. And it was only, like, 6:30 in the evening.

I was being so completely obnoxious on the drive over that Andy and Jana, the two friends who had the misguided notion that it was this great idea to put me in the car and take me to the movie with them, were likely regretting it halfway over to the next town, but by then it was too late. They couldn’t put me out of the car out there on the highway – well, I guess they could have, but they didn’t – I guess the thought of me winding up passed out on my face in the middle of the wildlife refuge gave pause. And if they turned around and dumped me back off uptown with other friends, they’d have missed the movie.

I don’t recall what movie it was, but it was some fall blockbuster of 1982 and was opening night, and the theater, naturally, was packed and had almost sold out. Half of my town was there, and among the sea of faces and in my drunken haze I recognized many more I had grown up with in earlier days in the town where the theater was. Grand.

There’s hardly any seats and we can’t find three together, it’s so packed, but we finally found two together (Jana demanding to Andy, “YOU sit with her!”) and one behind those two. And the movie’s starting and the lights are going down, but not so much that you can’t still (unfortunately) see people.

Which means that when we made our way to our seats – in the middle and towards the front of the theater, no less – and I (A) tripped and stumbled all the way there, and (B) when attempting to take my seat, my ass landed smack on the floor instead of in the seat because I didn’t have the good sense to hold the seat down – five million people I knew saw the whole thing. And cracked up. (I laughed too, but that’s beside the point, plus, I was trashed anyhow.)

It gets better. We get thru the movie, mercifully with no further events. And then – instead of taking my drunk ass back across the county line to uptown hometown where I can be wasted in peace and only to the amusement of those who I didn’t really care if they saw me that wasted – instead of that, where do they take me next?

The McDonald’s up the street where EVERYONE congregates after a movie. Why did anyone think this was a good idea?

And it’s there that I made one of the grandest faux pas in high school history due to the horrific judgment of my severely inebriated state. There was a guy there who I was friends with, who just happened to be there with his longtime girlfriend (who I was not really good friends with at the time, but would be later on down the line). They showed up at our table to say hi.

Funny thing about this guy is one of my female relatives had been in town visiting a week or two before that. There’d been a pool party at my house and said guy ended up liplocked with this female relative of mine for the duration of the evening. Longtime girlfriend was – of course – NOT there.

Yeah, so guess what drunk opened her big mouth and sort of wound up causing one of the biggest breakups in Northwest Tennessee history in 1982. I wouldn’t say inadvertently. I would almost say directly, except I was just vague enough to make the information not all that easily understood (apparently I had SOME sense) – but trashed enough for it to be obvious I knew something certain other persons (i.e., longtime girlfriend) at the table were not supposed to know – and it was a few more weeks before the actual crash and burn of the breakup. But yeah, it eventually came around, and it was pretty much my drunkass, big mouth fault.

(On the other hand, if he hadn’t been cheating on her in the first place…? Right? No? Whatever.)

Anyway, that was one of the rare you-shouldn’t-take-her-out-in-public events.

But this was supposed to be a haunted house story, correct?

So now it’s 1985, and my ass has chosen this particular Friday evening after working all day at the answering service (another horror story in itself) to stay home and out of everyone’s way, not bothering a soul and minding my own business. Just me, the stereo, one very nice lime, a shaker of salt, and a full bottle of tequila.

Wherever Kelli and Andy were supposed to be that evening, I have no idea. But the next thing I know they’re there in the apartment Andy and I were sharing at the time in Jackson, disturbing my private party, and with this fabulous idea that they’re going to go check out a haunted house.

And the completely idiotic idea that they’re going to take me with them.

I said no a dozen times. I just wanted to stay there at home, shoot (more) tequila and get drunk(er). Veg at the apartment, out of sight, doing my thing and not bothering anyone. “I’m fine right where I am,” I kept protesting.

“Oh, come on, come on,” Kelli cajoled. “It’ll be fun!”

Which was probably time #724 of the 1,016 times she’s talked me into doing something that no one in their right mind should ever do. They, of course, soon dragged me off and out into the car, and off we went.

But the first thing we had to do, ten miles or so down the road, was yours truly – of course – suddenly had to go to the bathroom. In a VERY bad part of town.

There’s no place around except the Krystal, where two cops (a portent of things to come?) just happened to be sitting inside munching on a bag full of Krystals. “Go on, it’ll be OK,” Kelli said. “The police are in there. You won’t get robbed or raped or murdered with the police in there eating Krystals.”

What I am wearing is probably the icing on the cake of this particular tale. It is, again, 1985 – and I am wearing what is really a Minnie Mouse nightshirt in dayglo 1980’s neon colors, but is functioning this evening as a t-shirt minidress with a somewhat matching dayglo neon Esprit belt to boot (I think it was chartreuse); period-appropriate dayglo neon ’80s jewelry, including some godawful ugly jangly necklace and long dangle earrings that don’t match but are indeed part of a set (one spelled out B-O-Y, I don’t remember what the other earring had on it); the prerequsite armload of neon-colored bangles and black plastic bracelets; and fuschia plastic thong sandals. I am also (of course) wearing makeup in colors not seen in nature, thick black liquid eyeliner, and this atrocious neon-y fuschia lace scarfy thing tied in my hair.

(Look, it was 1985, okay?)

So there I go, weaving my way through Krystal en route to the bathroom, totally blitzed on tequila. Pretty much looking like Madonna Jr., and being the only white face in there. Probably the only one for miles, save for my so-called friends waiting outside in the car.

Next it was off to said haunted house, where we proceeded to break in via a back kitchen door. Unable to get the door open, we climbed through an already open window in the door, which was no easy feat for me due to (A) aforementioned copious amounts of tequila and (B) aforementioned plastic thong sandals, which dropped off my feet an untold number of times before successful entrance into said abandoned kitchen, flashlights in tow.

Did I mention why it was okay for us to be breaking into this “haunted” house? The house was an old, long-abandoned Victorian among many other old and long abandoned huge houses in downtown Jackson. The owner was long gone, but the house was still owned by the family – the family of Kelli’s sometimes, then-on-again-off-again, boyfriend. Who, a few years later would become her permanent husband – but at the time, they weren’t exactly on speaking terms.

The house was creepy enough tho the whole experience was kind of anticlimactic. The downstairs was still fully furnished, and the really creepy part (other than the fact that we were in a very old and very dark and very long-empty house) was that there was stuff everywhere. Not as if someone was still living there; more like there had been an intended estate sale that never happened. A humongous buffet in the dining room and the dining room table – both just covered with all kinds of oddities, tons of junk. Hardly any floor space to walk through any of the downstairs rooms, because there was so just much stuff everywhere.

The one single really “eek! haunted house!” moment came when we made our way to the foyer. There was this sole wooden chair semi-facing the front door of the house, as if someone had just set it there on purpose. On the chair was a very old, creepy-looking and worn, hardcover book, also seemingly set there on purpose.

The title of the book was Knock on Any Door.

Okay, that kind of creeped us out a little but again, it was kind of anticlimactic. Just creepy enough to give us a bit of the shivers, but it wasn’t like a screaming moment of terror.

Next, we headed up what was really a very grand wooden staircase in the front hall, towards the upstairs. Okay, upstairs was a little bit scarier. For one thing, all the rooms upstairs were completely empty. And the streetlights outside that were shining through the windows gave it a different, eerier feel than downstairs.

We didn’t see much of interest upstairs and, after briefly losing Andy for a moment, ended up congregating in one of the front bedrooms. It was oddly and inexplicably chilly in that room.

“I feel like someone died in here,” someone said. Which one of us, I don’t know.

Suddenly, there was this jarring sound from the back part of the house. Kelli and I both shrieked.

But from where Andy stood, he could see out the front windows. “Get down!” he shushed us. “The cops are outside.” Great.

So there the three of us are, Kelli and I hunkered down on one side of the room, Andy on the other, hoping we won’t get caught and hoping they’ll go away. Actually, I’m not hoping anything, I’m too toasted to care, but at least I was having the good sense at the time to stay still and keep quiet.

And I have to admit that even tho the whole “haunted house” experience this run had been pretty much a bust as far as terror and fright – and even tho I knew it was the cops – hiding there and waiting in that desperately cold room, listening to the footsteps slowly coming up those heavy wooden stairs – yep, that was kind of creepy. Tho probably more creepy in an “OK, we’re getting arrested” kind of way.

When the lone police officer got to the top, he almost immediately found us (of course). As another officer came lumbering up the stairs behind him and into the room, he shined his flashlight around the room in our faces. “Okay, stand up and put your hands in the air.”

Which the three of us did, of course.

And then I proceeded to take one hand and point at Kelli, telling the cops: “Talk to HER! She’s the one! It was HER idea!”

So, after ratting out my best friend, and the cops obviously deciding we were unarmed and harmless idiots (especially the drunk and wobbling Madonna clone in the Minnie Mouse nightshirt), they walked us downstairs and gathered us on the front porch to decide what to do with us. Andy, in his best radio announcer’s voice, was being Mr. Public Relations trying to smooth talk his way (and, I guess, our way) out of trouble. Kelli was silent and afraid to open her mouth, tho what she really wanted to do was cuss me out for ratting on her, of course.

I wasn’t saying a word either, mainly because I was so trashed and basically just thinking, “I really hope we don’t get arrested, and I wonder how much tequila is left in that bottle at the apartment.”

Out on the porch, the officer that had initially found us is patiently explaining to us, as if we’re all three-year-olds, the definition of breaking and entering, and obviously trying to decide whether we are intelligent enough to comprehend the fact that we might just be going to jail momentarily.

But Kelli was going to explain our way out of this. I don’t recall exactly what she said, but here’s the paraphrased version:

“Look, I know this looks bad, but it’s not like we were REALLY breaking and entering. This is my boyfriend’s grandmother’s house. And the window in the back door was open anyway. We didn’t have to BREAK anything. We just ENTERED.”

About that same time, one of the other cops on the porch is getting on his radio. “Yeah, I’m at (whatever the address was),” he says into the radio. “We’ve got some kids that broke into my grandmother’s house.”

Kelli, meet your future husband’s cousin, the cop. Cop, meet your cousin’s future wife and mother of his child. All right, an anecdote for family Thanksgivings and Christmases for years to come!

Anyway, yep, a few more offhand threats of jail and stern warnings later, they let us go. Yep, Kelli’s then-sometimes-boyfriend-later-husband was somewhere between Pissed with a capital P that his name even got brought into it in the first place, and mildly amused at how dumb we were. And yep, I got back to the apartment, shot more tequila, and passed out oblivious to the world until daylight. Thankfully in my own bed, and not a bunk in the Madison County Jail.

I drink very, very infrequently these days – an occasional beer here and there, mimosas on Christmas Day (always), and I can’t turn down a Wallaby Darned at the Outback – and I can’t shoot tequila anymore, after a particularly gruesome bout with that in 1987. Still to this day, I can’t smell it without my stomach twisting in knots. But I do have the good sense to know that the Goldschlager is best kept in the fridge at home – and so is Lynnster – and not out in public.

Thing is, I ALWAYS knew that kinda thing – and often said so in huge protest – it’s just that no one listened to me and dragged me out with them anyhow. Often much to their regret later, but that was their own damn fault.

And oh yeah – the “haunted house”? Years later, Kelli’s hubby said he thought someone in the family DID die long ago in that bedroom that was so cold. Eek.