The beer

When I first moved back in, I had a hard time transitioning from being on my own, in my apartment, doing my thing to living with my parents in their home. I was surprised at the little things that changed that I never thought twice about when in my own place. For instance, I forget sometimes that I now have to shut the bathroom door when I shower (it gets too foggy), and I cannot simply go to my room wrapped in a towel to get dressed. You also need to lock the bathroom door because seriously, some people, aka my brother, sometimes does not bother knocking or looking to see if he can see if the bathroom light is on through the door crack, and will just walk in. Makes for a highly awkward situation for all parties. Slowly but surely though, I'm adjusting, and like I've mentioned, my parents are letting me live there free of rent until I can get back out on my own, so complaining about small stuff is silly.

Around the first week I moved in, my dad reminded me to bring in some beer which I had forgotten about that was left in my car from my move. This was during the height of our heat wave, so beer sitting in the backseat of my car for the weekend meant this beer was super hot and in need of refrigeration, which means I couldn't immediately break rule 1 and take the beer directly to my room to enjoy on my own time, far away from the kitchen. This day I was particularly stressed with life in general, so that night I had one while talking with my mom and cutting my dad's hair, then snuck another to my room around 10pm when my parents were in their room. Now, it was light beer, so after two I only had a slight buzz and felt a little relaxed. This post is going to make me sound like an alcoholic sneaking beer away to my room, but like I said, it was only two, and the sneaking was more for the rule than my parents seeing me drink beer. Anyways, I watched a movie while I started on a painting project, drinking my beer and around 11:30pm, was still wide awake and decided I wanted one more as I planned to continue working on my painting.

It was going to be easy to sneak it down and as I hit the top of the stairs, I saw my dad on the computer in the dining room. My father is recently retired and now enjoys the perks of not working, which include staying up and sleeping in late. I had forgotten this. My mom was already in bed, and I could tell by the shut bedroom door and the floor fan going. I stood at the open fridge for a second, that cold beer staring at me, and my dad turned and asked what I was doing. "Getting a snack"was my reply. I waited until he turned back around and contemplated how I was going to get this can downstairs. I initially thought, hey, I'll tuck it into the waistband of my pj pants. The cold can touched my skin and I just couldn't do it. Then, a genius moment popped in my head; I'll wrap it in a paper towel so I can sneak it in my bra and take it downstairs with me. Brilliant. I tore a paper towel off, wrapped my beer, was attempting the beer-in-bra mission when bam-my mom. She came in the kitchen, said she couldn't sleep and asked what I was doing.

How does one explain their situation with a beer can carefully wrapped in a paper towel? You just can't without sounding sad. My response?

"I couldn't sleep so I just thought I'd drink this beer, maybe it'd help me relax or something. I'm kinda hungry though."

Stupid.

So I placed the beer back in the fridge because it looks bad to a) chug a beer in the kitchen in front of your mom at 11:30pm so you can go downstairs without bringing a liquid with me, and b) makes me look like a bonified alcoholic to need beer to fall asleep.

I instead ate a banana, talked with my mom for a half hour, and returned to my room sober, defeated, and went to sleep.