Things That We Up With Put

 I have never been kicked out of a bar.

It was once suggested that I might be asked to leave a Denny's, since it's a "family restaurant" and all. A friend and I were given a similarly worded stern warning about the dialogue we were carrying on near the back of the Disneyland parking lot tram. Which would seem like a good way to lead into this next point:

I have been asked to leave a friend's house. More than once. 

This suggests that I feel most comfortable in the homes of close personal acquaintances. More comfortable than I do in a declared family restaurant or just outside the Happiest Place On Earth. Which in turn suggests that I feel like I feel most free in the company of those who know me best. 

Or perhaps it means that the way I have acted, historically, has somehow passed the "sniff test" around individuals who have felt the depths of my charms in public settings. 

So rather than do a lot of what might be a regrettable dredge of my past behavior, which I assure you was offensive but not ever to the degree that actual security had to be summoned, I will go ahead and confess to what all these shenanigans on my part has generated: an absurd amount of tolerance. 

The hallmark of this can be found in the way I tend to simply ignore loud noises coming from across the street. Day or night. This is my penance for all the times my stereo or my "inside voice" was not suitable for those within a half mile. Similarly, the outrageous behavior I have encountered in our neighborhood parties has never tipped the scales past the "Oh, that's nothing compared to what we did once" mark. 

And when it comes to drunken sloshing or borderline belligerence, I can absorb a lot of slurred attempts at humor, or sloppy confrontations aimed at the windmills of authority. I get it. I've been there. Things will look a lot different in the light of the coming day. I have made those next morning phone calls, and the level of shame that accompanies anyone with a conscience suggests that there really should be a limit to what we will all allow. 

Mine has just been calibrated a little differently.