Part the First:

Whew. The traditional Mike Logan Day After Christmas Lie-In is complete. If you start the clock at the time I went to bed, instead of being persnickety and saying "it starts at midnight," I managed to skip December 26 altogether. A major triumph, because I dislike Boxing Day - or the mass-consumerfest, as I like to call it - immensely.
So, now that I have regained conciousness, here's what happened, day and night.


How I Spent Christmas
By Mike Logan, age N.O.Y.B.

As for the morning, Bobby Goren was in a real funk for most of it, I'll note. I tried to get him to come around, but really, I've got stuff on my mind, too, and maybe I didn't try hard enough.
It's not my fault some perfidious wench played a song that got stuck in my head, therefore insuring that I spent a good deal of time drumming the desk as I worked. And like I told him when he asked what I thought I was doing, I can't even bring myself to say the full title, so let's just say it's the one that starts with "Peaches'."
I tried to interact with him on a intellectual level, discussing the social construct of the "polite fiction" and the nature of the phenomena known as the "Porn Trance" and "Porn Drift"- the interweb is educational! - but he just asked me whether I wouldn't like to go take my lunch break, and you only have to hit me with the clue-by-four so hard before I get the drift.
Anyhow, so I wandered about a bit, as I am wont to do, and found - an open drugstore! More wonderously, it was one that was having a sale on Pepto-bismol pills, which counts as a Festivus Miracle. I was so happy. Then I reflected on the reason I've been chowing down antacids like mad, and gave her a call.
She sounded like she was still trying to get over the past two days, kinda groggy and weak, but when I suggested I stop by, she perked right up. "NO! she screamed so loud the counter guy could hear her. "I mean - I don't think that's such a good idea, there's still a teeny bit of a, well, you know how you overreact, and it's only sort of, uh, you know, just not a good idea."
"Relax, "I told her. "I don't even want to see what horrors have befallen the joint. Meet me downstairs?"
Fifteen minutes later, I arrived at my place, olive branch in a brown paper bag. Once I rang the buzzer, she stumbled outside, looking a lot more like the version of herself I remember from college - half-naked and mostly hungover.
"Merry Christmas to you, o evil one. It's not the blood of your enemies, or the cursed eye of an idol, but it'll have to do." I said, handing her the sentimental token I'd gotten her. When I saw it in the store, I remembered the first holiday I'd ever spent with her, which was really, really fun, in a Lost Weekend sort of way.
She even teared up a little, looking at it. "Grape flavor, my favorite." She pretended to read the label, but I knew she was touched. Even managed a smile, without the fangs, as she said, "You know, I quit this stuff, a long time ago. Tablets mess you up a lot more. And I find I'm actually buying it for cold symptoms - who'd have thought it? Weren't we supposed to be dead by now?"
I shrugged. "I know. It's really weird, hunh?"
She cracked it open, and handed me the little cup from the top. "So, a drop of the 'tussin for old times, then?"
"What the hell. I feel a cough coming on." We clinked the cup and the bottle together, and did our usual toast, quoting the wisdom of our mothers and the nuns who knew us best.
"You're headed for hell, Michael Logan, straight to the devil's bosom," she said with a grin.
"You're a decietful slut, Kate Dobrynski, and you'll never amount to a damn thing." I added. "Bottoms up."
After the one drink, I said I had to get going. We still need to talk, and she knows it, but that wasn't the day. It's like the Germans and the Allies playing football. You can have a break in the war to have a bit of fun.

The day could only get more normal from then on in, right? If you said "yes," you obviously haven't been paying attention.