Liquid Courage?

So I'm not sure what it is - is it me? Do I annoy people enough that they say stupid things? Maybe I don't know when to shut my mouth. But clearly the ol' liquid courage came into play tonight at dinner.

Case #1 - okay, so two guys are playing pool at this somewhat dive-ish restaurant. They're cool and we're just joking back and forth. We even offer them some of our pizza. Then some FABWDNE (fat a$$ beret wearing drunk New Englander) joins in. Apparently he is taking his pool playing seriously. He asks one of our group to move so he can take a shot. No problem. I joked, "Now you better make it." He looked at me and mumbled something like, "I sense a challenge." After he hit a horrible shot, I said, "Nope, no challenge there." Guess he didn't think my joke was funny. He started mouthing off more about none of us putting their quarter on the table for the next game. I said to one of my co-workers, "Alrighty, give me some quarters." Well, he told me to just relax and let the guy just keep mouthing off. Clearly he was looking for trouble. Probably the best thing. I envisioned a pool cue to the back of my head after I whooped his sorry a$$.

Case #2 - so shortly after Case #1, I'm sitting at the table minding my own business since I was a bit miffed still when I hear a co-worker of mine talking about beating me in a sprint race. 50 yard dash. I was like, "Huh?!!!" Now, depending on the co-worker, it could be a challenge. I'm not a huge runner but I'm pretty darn quick. Definitely built more for speed than endurance. My co-worker? Ran track back in high school apparently. But that was like 40 years ago. Dude is 58 and walks pretty slowly. I said, "I'll beat you running backwards." Weird, unsolicited challenge. Oh well, he was too wasted to race outside in the parking lot (me in my dress shoes and him in his tennis shoes). So we're on for Thursday. Maybe the liquid courage will wear off by then and he'll come to his senses.

Or maybe it is me - I'm always the sober one so I should know what I'm saying, right? Oh well, too old to change now. Brought back memories of the softball tournament when a guy came at me with a bat during a brawl where I was the first one out of the dugout...