Walter Matheson struggled to comprehend even the most basic things as he emerged from a coma-like state induced by a night of hard partying.
“Why is everything so loud?” he wondered.
The normally quiet hum of overhead lighting sounded like a jackhammer trying to split open his skull—and from the way he felt, it was succeeding. He had a splitting headache.
“Mr. Matheson, are you alright?” a voice asked—soft but annoyingly precise, like someone trying to be professional during your worst moment. “Do you need any help?”
Walter tried to open his eyes. It was like someone had pulled a frat prank and glued his eyelids shut. They felt crusty, and everything was out of focus. He was lying on the floor of what he figured was some random frat house or apartment he’d ended up at during the night.
“Wait… did someone call me Mr. Matheson?”
I mean, that is my name, but who calls a guy my age Mr. anything?
He attempted to move, and felt something stuck to the side of his face. Peeling it off, he found what appeared to be a photocopy of someone’s butt.
“What the hell??” he said aloud, immediately wincing at what he perceived as shouting.
“Who sat on a copier? Who even has a copier?”
Nothing was making sense.
It was then he realized he was feeling a draft. He looked down. He was completely naked. Naked on the floor. In public.
In his mind, he reacted swiftly to cover himself. In reality, he just lay there, blinking.
“Would you like help getting to your room, Mr. Matheson?” came the same voice—patient but increasingly irritating.
“Huh?” he muttered.
“I think you’d be more comfortable in your room,” she added in a tone he took to be borderline arrogance.
My room? Are you talking about my dorm room? Are we near there? And how do you even know where my dorm room is?
Bits of the previous night began to trickle in—tequila shots, dancing, making out with someone.
Man, I must’ve had a great time. Wish I could remember it better.
He sat up slowly, leaning against a couch, his brain still catching up.
The pleather couch was cool against his skin and provided a slight relief from what felt like a fever-dream. The couch was not pleather though—it was, in fact, a hideously patterned cloth chair with a heavy plastic wrap reminiscent of a grandmother’s couch. Because that’s pretty much what it was.
So many questions. Like… whose house am I in?
As his vision cleared, he surveyed the large room—couches, chairs, a big-screen TV. Framed wall art. Tables. And there, hanging proudly on the wall in fancy script:
“Golden Meadows Retirement Community.”
“Holy shit.”
Reality slapped the snot out of him. Walter Matheson was not a young co-ed recovering from a wild bender. He was an old man, butt-naked in the common area of his retirement facility. That photocopied rear end? It belonged to Mildred White.
“Oh no…” he groaned.
The events of the Golden Meadows 4th of July celebration came flooding back—specifically, how a perfectly innocent punch bowl had somehow gotten spiked and turned the senior soirée into Project X: Retirement Edition.
And that voice—that annoyingly calm, overly polite voice—was Rachel, the Golden Meadows day manager.
When he first woke up, he thought he’d be doing the walk of shame across campus. Now, he realized the shame remained—but the walk had become more of a shuffle.
He slowly pulled himself up, grabbed his walker, and began the long, pantsless trek to his room. All the while, apologizing profusely to Rachel and resigning himself to the fact that his old man bits were on full parade.
“Lord,” he muttered to no one in particular,
“can we please just forget this happened and not mention it to my kids?”
One thing was clear:
A party at Golden Meadows wasn’t your typical shuffleboard-and-tea sort of affair.
