Hitting the Wall

Something happens to me that I refer to as hitting the wall. If drinking beer for example, which I don't do well, I'll often hit a drinking wall, where I cannot possibly put another drop down my throat because I feel full. The wall sneaks up on me very quickly. I can have three pints of beer and feel fine, but three sips into my fourth and the wall just hits. People, Irish people in particular, comment on leaving a perfectly good beer to waste, but I just can't finish it. I also have a "I'm tired and need to go to bed" wall. It's like the drinking wall except that when it hits, I need to go home and go to bed, and I need that to happen right away. If I'm left waiting before I can head home, I get very, very crabby.

Irish people aren't generally known for being particularly speedy. This is especially true when they're out socialising/drinking. It also gets worse as the night progresses, which creates a conflict with my wall and my subsequent need for a quick escape at the end of the night. Usually, I try to prevent such problems by not going to an event with someone, and also by having my own way home (usually taxi), so I don't have to rely on anyone else. I actually do my best not to agree to getting a ride home with someone. I also don't wait around for others to be ready at the end of the night. I make sure that the other girls are set up with rides or they come with me for a taxi, but everyone else is on their own. When I'm out with my Canadian friends, I can leave quickly and easily. Someone will say, are you ready to go, and we go. It's all very simple. That doesn't work with Irish people.

Case in point. This past weekend, I was in Letterkenny at a party with a friend. I decide that I want to leave and my friend says that we'll call a cab to get back to the B&B, but first we have to find Deirdre because she might want to share a cab. 10 minutes later, we find Deirdre and she's just opened a new beer. So w''re going to wait for Deirdre to finish her beer. By this point, it's 2.30am and I'm estimating our ETA to the B&B at 4.00am. It's a 25 minute walk to the B&B. I suggest that we call the cab now anyway because it took 45 minutes for one to come get us to take us to the party - in Letterkenny, which isn't that big. There was some hesitation here on my friend's part. Finally my friend calls a cab, and it's going to be 20 minutes, so he's worried that the taxi will be here too soon. hahahahahahahaha. First of all, this is Letterkenny. Things do happen at a certain pace in Dublin, but they happen twice as slowly outside of Dublin. Since I have hit the wall, my censor is also disabled and I tell him not to worry because that's an Irish 20 minutes. They won't be here before half an hour, but probably closer to the 45 minutes it took for us to get a taxi on the way here. So, now I'm not too popular and I'm sitting on a porch step. People are looking at me because I look like I'm wasted and ready to drop at any second while we wait for Deirdre to finish her beer. While the second half of that is right, I didn't actually have very much to drink - only a couple of glasses of wine. I. Just. Want. To. Go. Home. NOW. Any act on my part to be sociable could inadvertantly prolong the goodbye process.

The Irish have a way of saying goodbye that seems to last forever. Really, they're going to see each other again. At the end of a party though, when they say that they're leaving, what they really mean is 'I'm going to have one last drink, make one last round of conversation with everyone, and then I'll call a taxi and start to prepare to leave, but will do a final goodbye and someone will say "do you really have to go now" and I may change my mind and have one more for the road'. If they do go, the approximate time between stated intention to leave with actually physically leaving is anywhere between 1-3 hours. This is something I can't comprehend. Even if the wall hasn't hit yet, once I say I'm leaving, I am really leaving and I prepare to actually do so. As a kid, it drove me nuts when we would get our coats on to leave someplace and my parents would continue the conversation at the door with the host for half an hour while my brother and I were standing there roasting.

So back to Letterkenny. As it didn't look like Deirdre or my friend were actually ready to go anytime soon and I didn't want to be the party pooper, I told my friend that it's only a 25 minute walk to the B&B, but it will be 45 minutes before the taxi arrives, and probably closer to an hour by the time we actually get out of there, so I have no problem walking back. And I meant it. I don't want to drag people away, but I was so close to losing it because they weren't leaving any time soon. I know it's just the Irish demeanour but I do think it's kind of rude. I said I wanted to go, and my friend said we would go, but then we're not really going. He knows I'm tired, but I'm expected to wait for an hour and a half for him. I'm supposed to wait because he'll feel bad that he let me walk home alone in the middle of the night, but I'm supposed to wait until 4am so he doesn't feel bad? We left as soon as the taxi came whether the others were ready to go or not (they weren't).

I think others think that I'm just being crabby, and well I am being crabby, but it's more than that. It's actually almost painful for me to sit there and wait for the others to be ready when I'm dead tired. I can't describe it, but it's a real physical exertion to keep my eyes open, let alone be charming. I don't think people understand how annoying and hard it is to wait for people to walk down the street, people who are walking so slow because they have the complete inability to walk in a straight line. They stop at a side street (is is this one?). Then they stop because they think they left their jacket behind, but no they're wearing it. They then stop again and turn around because they think they lost me, but meanwhile, I'm taking baby steps and pausing during each one and I'm still half a block ahead of them. The only way I could be behind them is if I was walking backwards. They also stop whenever someone speaks because they can't walk and talk at the same time. And finally, finally, a 1/2 hour later, they make it to the end of the street. But look Abrakebabra (dodgy kebab chain). Food. Let's stop. ARGGHHHH!

I know it would be easier if I could catch early-warnings signs of the wall. That way, I can proactively say that I need to go and maybe successfully leave before the wall hits. But I can't predict it. I can be on the dance floor one minute and look like I'm ready to boogie all night, and the next minute it will hit. Then I need to go. Now.