On the Eighth Day of Christmas…
It’s New Year’s Eve and the time has come to say goodbye to the old year. But we just couldn’t leave 2011 with dignity. That wouldn’t be any fun. And so…
“On the eighth day of Christmas, Coppelia gave to me, eight (empty) bottles of champagne…”
Really nothing says Happy New Year like a criminal record, and I’m not talking about my brief, misguided stint as a supervillain. I’m talking about New Year’s Eve. We were all gathered together for a nice party to ring in 2012. We had Times Square on the tube, noisemakers at the ready and cocktail weenies like you wouldn’t believe. We were all ready for a great night.
Then Guillotina broke out the champagne and poured the glasses. Okay, let me be clear about something. Brittany, Freddie and myself are not quite of age yet. But we were just talking about a small glass of champagne to celebrate. We were all fully prepared to indulge in some sparkling cider after that. Well, I was. However, I was rooming with several girls who are considerably older than me so they were all past the legal drinking age, some of them by several hundred years. Then again, most of them are also legally dead, so does the drinking age really even matter for them? Tina doesn’t like me to talk about her age, but she always says she stopped counting at 100. Coppelia is at least as old as she is. Then there’s Ember who died in the 70′s, Eva who died in the 80′s, and Allie and Andie who died in the 90′s. Considering Linda was most likely the inspiration for the story of Little Red Riding Hood, she’s got to be at least as old as Charles Perrault and the Brothers Grimm, and Jinni’s got to be pushing 1,000 by now. Most varieties of alcohol didn’t even exist last time she was flesh and blood. Roxy won’t tell me how old she is but, again, she’s a ghost. She’s sort of past the age most people do anything. I suppose the being dead thing earns me the right to do a good many things most of my peers cannot, but I still plan on waiting until I reach 21 fair and square. Plus, alcohol is what got me this fashionable shade of pale and I can’t drink it without tasting a ton of metal slowly crushing my body.
Anywho, we were all gathered to watch the ball drop and had our glasses and noisemakers in hand as we counted down the seconds to the new year. With an explosion and a burst of fireworks, 2011 was pronounced DOA and 2012 was born! Horns and cranks and gongs sounded and we all took a sip of celebratory bliss.
“Who wants more of se bubbly?” Tina asked, proudly holding a bottle in her hand.
“None for me,” I replied in my best goody two-shoes voice. “Come to think of it, Tina. How did you manage to get that champagne anyway. I know you’re at least a hundred but even the oldest of us still look like teenagers.” To be fair, of all of us, Tina definitely looked the most mature. But it was still a fair concern.
“Oh sis ees my fameely’s label, from my faser’s own veeniards! Ah brought out eight bottles…” Then she paused and looked around the room. “Where are se rest of se bottles?” She began to panic. “Where ees Coppelia?”
“What’s the matter?”
“She can’t dreenk!”
“Why, isn’t she old enough?”
“Oui, she ees old enough but alcohol warps her spreengs!”
“Spreengs? What are spreengs?”
“Spreengs! Spreengs! Like een a clock!”
“Oh,” I said with a laugh. “Springs! Springs… uh oh.” Yeah. We went searching outside and finally found Coppelia about an hour later.
“Where was she?” Tina demanded with a huff, as I sat the tipsy mechanical girl on the sofa.
“She was in a police car,” I said, straightening her pigtails as she stared out into space.
Tina burst into tears. “You mean she had been arrested?”
“No, she was driving it.” I shrugged. “Then she crashed it into a lampost.”
“What were you theenking, you dreadful leetle geerl?” Tina shouted, shaking Coppelia. “You know how easily se dreenk affects you!”
“I didn’t crash because I was drunk,” she retorted rising, quickly but less than straight, up. “I crashed because I couldn’t see with my tutu around my eyes.”
“Well pourquoi was your tutu around your eyes?”
Coppelia paused for a few moments. “Maybe because I was drunk.” Apparently she had downed eight bottles of Tina’s champagne and began performing Act I, Scene 3 of Sylvia in the middle of the street, with her tutu up around her head. I’m not sure whether or not she was wearing anything where her tutu should have been but, judging by the reactions of the two cops who tried to stop the performance, she probably wasn’t. Coppelia thought they weren’t fans of ballet and that’s why they were so angry but I think the resisting arrest and grand theft auto may have had something to do with it. It took an awful lot to fix that whole mess but being the guardian of the veil between life and death does give me some pull when it comes to ushering water under the bridge. Even if this wasn’t exactly water we were dealing with.
“Coppelia,” I scolded. “You’re just lucky you’re an enchanted mechanical doll and a character from folklore or you’d be in a heap of trouble!”
“I’m sorry,” she muttered, hazily, before suddenly falling asleep right where she sat. She would probably need to wind herself a few extra times in the morning but, other than that, she would be fine. But she demonstrated an important lesson for me; Temperance. Just because we can do something doesn’t give us the right to throw caution and common sense to the wind. There’s a reason there’s a drinking age and, just because you’re “of age,” doesn’t mean you can abuse the privilege. Now with my after-school special concluded (to be honest, it was better than an after-school special because it had monsters and ballet and a car crash in it) allow me to wish you a very happy and safe New Year and best of luck in 2012!
Hopefully, by this time next year, we’ll all still be around to throw another party. If we’re lucky. But that’s another story… and it’s called the Book of Revelation.
