Happy 10th Anniversary Of Guy Who Flipped Over The Banister Day

The title of this post is a text message I received over the weekend from my friend, Meredith. It took me a few moments to decipher and then I remembered -- the Milennium New Year's Eve that we spent in New York City...

(wavy lines and "DO..do.do.do" music here signifying the trip in the wayback machine)

Meredith had some sweet deal when she first moved to NYC. She lived rent-free with a couple that had a sick apartment in exchange for cleaning the house wearing nothing but fishing waders and nipple clamps helping out when they entertained, which was often. Over the years, this couple had purchased four adjacent apartments and combined them...which made for a huge, two-story, roof balcony-wrapping-around-the-entire-apartment place on the Upper West Side. They were out of town for the holidays that year, so Meredith decided she would take that opportunity to throw a major party.

She did act responsibly as she was holding this party in someone else's gorgeous home. And by that, I mean she went to the Meatloaf concert at Madison Square Garden for the first half of the evening, while about a hundred people descended upon the apartment. (Including the drunken, jackass cousin of one of our friends.)

(Great aside: On the way into the Meatloaf concert, someone who worked for the show was assessing the crowd in search of someone who would go on stage with Meatloaf during the song, "Paradise by the Dashboard Light" and who wouldn't mind kissing someone while they were up there. Because Meredith's life is a series of bizarro incidents that sound made up but are not, she was selected from the crowd of thousands. While she was on stage, her now-husband John saw her, and never having met her before, turned to a friend he was with and said, "I'm going to marry that woman." The friend also knew Meredith, so John ended up being invited back to the party later that night.

By the time Mer and John made it back to the apartment, the evening had already gotten a little out of hand. One friend of theirs (a comedian) spent a good part of the night screaming suggestive ideas to the guys on the roof of the drug rehab place across the street, and the aforementioned drunken jackass cousin was at one point sitting on the upstairs banister when he lost his balance and fell backwards down to the first floor, landing on his (thankfully, fairly soft) head. The following conversation actually took place during this incident:

Drunken onlooker (in a panic): "Is anyone here a doctor?"
Our friend Sanjay (stepping forward, helpfully): "I am"
Drunken onlooker (quizzically): "A medical doctor?"
Our friend Sanjay (patiently, yet sarcastically): "No. A doctor of poetry."

Fortunately, the kid was okay. It took just a few stanzas of Walt Whitman to make him feel better.

Hope you all had Happy 10th Anniversaries of Guy who flipped over the banister days, too.