I was younger then, and I took more risks.

Staff luncheon at the only restaurant in town that passes for upscale. I am hungover, possibly still drunk, from the Christmas party I threw last night. I wasn't planning to drink as much as I did, but everyone showed up, with cute Christmas candies and earmuffs and emotional stability, full of modesty and moderation.

I have to work tomorrow.

I have to get up early.

I have to drive home.

This, I thought, is what Christmas is really all about: that sense of dissatisfaction, of loathing, even, for these people you call your friends, with their mid-western ideals and notions of responsibility, that makes you want to get so drunk you forget this is your life.

But now I am sitting, napkin on my lap, nervously stirring my hot tea, squeezing lemon into my water, folding and refolding the napkin in my lap, surrounded by my co-workers from the church. Someone is passing around a bottle of hand sanitizer and everyone takes a dollop. When I refuse, the whole table looks at me as though I were personally responsible for their stuffy noses or bouts with the stomach flu. What is it with this damn country and their hand sanitizer, I think bitterly. My mind wanders, as it always does when I see people in a fit over hygiene, to the store where I used to buy my Bulgarian espresso sludge on the way to school. The woman would put down the slab of raw meat she was handling to make my coffee and grudgingly give me change. No gloves, no handwashing. I'm still alive, I say to myself.

I quickly snap back to what is currently passing for reality, to the snippets of banal conversation going on around me. Talk of gluten allergies and how much per plate one should spend on a wedding meal and whether or not the Christmas shopping is done. I look to the head of the table, at the pastor who, besides me, is the only one not donning a hideous Christmas sweater. He's a nice guy, probably the only one at the table I've ever had a real conversation with. The cleaning lady is giving him a hard time, jokingly (?) saying she doesn't like the Bob Evans gift card he put in the envelope with her Christmas bonus. He gives a forced smile and continues buttering his roll. I can't help but wonder what he's actually like, when he doesn't have to pretend to be in a good mood all the time. I think we would be friends.

One person discusses her loathing of vegetables, another complains she doesn't know what half the stuff on the menu is. The waitress comes around and I order the sashimi tuna sandwich with cucumber wasabe sauce. I don't even want it; I just want the inevitable questions that will ensue when it finally comes. When did my only form of rebellion become a tuna sandwich? I wonder. Sad.

I decide I am probably the only person in the world who goes to a Christmas luncheon and ends up thinking about aging and death. I wonder what these people used to be like, if they used to have any sense of adventure about anything at all. Do they have any tattoos, or do they smoke, or do they secretly not believe in God? Are their marriages happy or do they cheat on their spouses or do they have sex five times a day? Perhaps there were and always will be stuffy germaphobes, who never take a sip of alcohol or take the Lord's name in vain. I wonder if I will end up like them one day, botoxed, decked out in Talbots clothing, afraid of eating my steak rare.