Make sure you do the funnest thing possible Friday night

Friday comes around and people get twitchy. Where are we going? What are we doing? Who are we inviting? Offers get tossed around, some are earnest entreaties, some are mere feel-you-outers. We all do the same thing, because god forbid, if we end up staying home in front of the TV tonight we will blow our brains out while watching Reba start dating again. I am as guilty as anybody. Every Friday I put out lots of maybe invitations while trolling for the best thing to do.

What exactly is the best thing to do? Best means, in the purest sense, free. Free food, booze, dancing – all these are considered best. Best also means watching people/animals fighting and wagering on the outcome of said fight. Best frequently means rubbing against foreign visitors seeking quick love in a Days Inn suite.

But what happens when inviters press us? People get like that. They say they have to know now or else they will give the theater ticket/couples massage gift certificate/clown school lesson to somebody else. Put these people off with intimations of an impending family crisis. Do not go into too much detail but mention it may require you to bail out of plans at any moment. Say something like, "Yeah my grandma has this thing, procedure, whatever, I might have to be available," then drift off like you really do not want to talk about it.

The trickiest part is assembling your invitation cards. Nobody wants to have all offers of friends' work parties. The object is to get a diversity of proposals. This provides us with the most choices when we finally deign to choose. Think spectrum. Think on one end, hearing Barenboim playing Hayden piano concertos, or on the other end feeling your shoes stick to the floor of a basement hovel where people dance in cages and the crawlspace has been converted to a love lounge. Friday evenings are fickle states of mind. One minute we want to rampage, the next we want to slump into a booth and eat soft foods. Only when the bell goes off will we truly know whether we are heavenward or hellbound.

Inevitably the many offers you end up discarding will each have an annoyed friend attached to them. How to mollify these people? I like to use two methods. One is to act confused, stressed and like you may have incipient dementia. Say something like, "Oh man, I'm sorry I had this client thing at the last minute and I got freaked out then my grandma called and I was like, I know I'm forgetting something, but I couldn't remember what."

The second method is to lie your ass off. Make up some total fabrication to excuse yourself and never deviate from it. Lying of course has risks, like your true activities getting featured later on the evening news. If you use the lie method try and avoid any kind of camera. A disguise never hurt either. This may be the time to try on the nose putty you bought or those knee high vinyl go go boots. Anything to distract people from seeing who you really are.