Seagrams & Secret Hot Tub Parties

My first day at the illustrious Marietta Country Club (circa 1996) involved driving the beverage cart around the golf course about seven hundred times. It was some type of "Senior Day" - so the age range of these men was somewhere between 77 and 107 years old. Actually, that depended on the day. There was another younger & much more fun group, but we will cover those stories later on.

As my first day out on the course was coming to a close, I was self-celebrating the fact that I did not run over that squirrel that kept sprinting out in front of my cart. I hoped he/she went somewhere else tomorrow.

As the sun was setting, a strapping old gent in plaid pants and a non-matching pink argyle sweater approached me.

"Kari," he hissed with his whiskey breath flaring like a dragon. "My wife is out of town, and some of my friends are coming over for a hot tub party. I would like for you to be there, and if you come," he leaned in closer to my ear, "then tomorrow I will take you car shopping, and buy you any car that you want. And I'm not kidding."

Neither was I. I wasn't really sure how to respond to all of this. I began by wiping his dragon-spit off of my cheek. I was 15 years old. He was 105 years old. I felt this was an opening for a bad/good Lifetime movie. I imagined it being called something like “Hot Tub Hell: The Tale of a Young Girl’s Adventures at a Geriatric Hot Tub Party That Ended in the Cardiac Ward at Kennestone” due to the heart attack I anticipated him having at any point in the night. What do "they" do at a hot tub party? Drink Seagrams and 7 and talk about their 401K's and the war? I didn’t want to find out. I just looked at him and smiled and said that I had plans, but I really appreciated his offer (seeing as how I briefly considered attending).

The next weekend he totally ignored me like we had broken up at the eighth grade dance. When I set his wedge salad with extra bleu cheese (gross) in front of him I whispered, “I didn’t want your stupid car anyway.”