Poker and Pints

Today Knoxie and I had to get up at the ass crack of dawn to drive into Carnwath for the beginning of his sister Pamela's wedding festivities. I was a tad worried, since this was the first time I was meeting his family and they would ALL be there, but I had already agreed to go and it was too late to back out now (plus I had a new dress that I was dying to wear, and what better occassion than a wedding?).

Once we were safely delivered to Carnwath by trusty old Chester, we dropped our stuff off at Pamela's house, where we were staying, and headed to the church for the rehearsal. And cue the introductions...I met all of the Knox siblings, the parents of Pamela and her soon-to-be-husband, and the rest of the wedding party. I was also jokingly informed that I couldn't call my boyfriend "Knoxie" while I was there, since this happened to be the nickname of more than one person in the family, and I needed to start calling him Callum to avoid confusion. I made the mental note and soon the rehearsal began.

Since I was the only person there who wasn't in the wedding or related to someone who was, I sat quietly in my chair and tried to run through everyone's names in my head again. The church was FUH-reezing because they were undergoing some renovations and the electricity (which included heating) wasn't working, so pretty soon into it I was dying to go outside into the warm-ish Scottish sun.

After the rehearsal was finished, we all headed over to Charlie's house (Cal's older brother) to hang out. Most of the girls in the wedding party had appointments to get spray-tanned in the garage and they asked me if I wanted in, but I decided to keep my pasty whiteness and politely declined. Instead I cracked a beer and started chatting with the guys. I never did venture out into the garage, but I imagine it looked something like this.

The plan for the rest of the night was: the girls get brown and head back to Pamela's house to work on the centerpiece for the church, and the guys stay at Charlie's for a night of beer and who knows what else. After a bit the guys headed into the dining room and started playing poker, and since there wasn't much else going on I soon followed behind.

Fast forward 4 beers and two hours later....Charlie's girlfriend Lisa comes into the dining room and says, "Melissa, weren't you supposed to be at Pamela's house? All the girls left half an hour ago." Turns out the girl that was supposed to be giving me a ride forgot about me and I was gonna be stuck at Charlie's house for the night. I think everyone thought that I was gonna be upset, but I was actually relieved to be staying with the guys because I was having a good time and I suck at doing all that girly stuff anyway. "No worries," I said to Lisa, "as long as I have a place to sleep I'm good!" and that was that.

We all knew that it was gonna be an early-ish night since we had to be up the next morning for the wedding, but we had started drinking so early that by about 10pm I was heavily buzzing. Add not eating to the 8 beers that I had consumed, and I was definitely feeling good by 11. I was also insistent on playing poker even though I know nothing about the rules, only that a flush is a good hand (and I suck at lying, so this game is definitely not my forte) and the guys obliged, but not without laughing at me and taunting me in their Scottish accents that I was too drunk or slow to understand. So mostly I just giggled and kept drinking since I had no idea what was going on, either in the game or in the conversations.

Eventually the guys ordered a munchy box of doner kebabs (Scotland's version of drunk food) but it looked like three week old Chinese food when it arrived, so I opted for a bag of Dorito's instead. I made it a point to let everyone know that I had 11 beers by the end of the night and that I was still standing (and talking). Even in my drunken haze I knew it was a personal achievement!

Luckily the guys liked me (I think anyway) and they put up with my drunk stupid ass, and I had a really great time! We called it a night around 1am and Cal and I headed to our air mattress, where I was told later that I was drunk-gibbering for another 30 minutes or so. I don't even want to know what I said, but it must not have been too bad since Cal hasn't dumped me yet.