Thanks, everyone, for all the wonderful feedback. We really appreciate it -- very, very much. We said all along while we were writing that if no one else thought the story was funny, at least we had cracked ourselves up. <g> But we're delighted (and relieved
) to know that our sense of humor isn't way out in left field.
The big topic of debate, as we expected
, was whether Clark was really drunk, and there were definitely two different opinions being expressed on the subject:
is it just me, or is a bottle and a half of wine lowering his inhibitions?
you made him drunk, you guys!
I want an explanation for how Clark got drunk!!!!
Are you sure Clark wasn't drunk?
... we get to see him drunk while he doesn't realize it yet.
versus ...
poor Clark chugging an entire bottle of wine and it still didn't make him drunk!
Clark's frustration at not being able to get drunk was quite interesting ...
... since he's gone for 36 hours without sleep and he's also mentally exhausted and frustrated about Lois, are you trying to imply that he's gotten "mentally" tipsy?
We know that Clark wasn't drunk, just finally frustrated and fed up with having to hide his feelings for Lois ...
LOL! Talk about different interpretations.
As Paul guessed, however, this was intentional on our part -- we wanted to leave it up to the reader to decide whether Clark was really getting tipsy (we certainly hope no one saw him as plastered!) from the wine, or whether it was all in his mind, due to his lack of sleep and frustrating day.
And to be honest, as a couple people implied, Clark may not even know whether his condition is physical or mental. After all, up to a point, acting "tipsy" is a state of mind -- there was a recent study, for example, where researchers got college students "drunk" on nothing but water and limes (they were told it was vodka and tonic water), and more first-hand, a woman I know once giggled and told her husband that it had been so long since she'd drank, she was getting tipsy from only a single drink ... he almost hated to tell her she was drinking non-alcoholic beer. <g>
So feel free to interpret it however you want to.
The next question that arose has to do with whether Clark's drinking will cause a problem for them later on ...
Me mentioned:
I get the impression that there could be problems cropping up from his state of "inebriation."
and Phil wrote:
Otherwise, I can't help feeling that there's trouble ahead for the couple, mostly stemming from how Lois will feel about "taking advantage" of Clark when he had the strength (barely! [[Big Grin]] ) not to take advantage of her. ... it would be in character for her to hate herself and feel horribly embarrassed and humiliated that she couldn't match her partner's self-control.
The two of you are coming at things from opposite directions -- one that Clark is drunk, the other that he's not -- but the common thread seems to be that, because Lois thinks Clark is drunk, she won't be able to trust his feelings. Don't forget, however, that whether or not Clark is drunk this night, he wasn't drunk the night before, and that's when he made it clear to Lois that he likes her -- he *really* likes her -- and that he wanted to be more than just friends. In our opinion, he's already let her know his feelings while sober, which Lois seems to recognize when her memory finally come back to her. Granted, Clark doesn't declare his undying love and neither does Lois. But our goal wasn't to get them down the aisle, only to get them to admit "there's more to our relationship than just friendship."
As for Lois hating herself and feeling humiliated over "taking advantage" of him, though, we honestly can't think of any reason why either of them would regret anything. As we said, we feel Clark made it clear when he was sober that he does like her and wants to kiss her, so we're not sure why Lois would feel guilty about taking him up on that, even if he's had a few drinks.
That said, it did occur to us that some people might be feeling uncomfortable with the "taking advantage" line because they interpreted this to mean "having sex". (No one stated this explicitly here, but one person did in private email.) If it helps anything, we can honestly say that this interpretation never occurred to us -- as far as we are concerned, they will make out for a little while, then will eventually settle in for a nice WAFFy talk.
It's much too early for them to be taking things to the bedroom, drinking or not!
What we have come to realize is missing, however, is that *Lois* never actually tells Clark that she likes him, only that she "still wants him". That's something we hope to add into the story, probably by having Lois say a little more when she tells Clark she wishes he wasn't drunk.
And finally, the calls for an epilogue ...
Thanks to everyone who weighed in on the subject; it's really interesting how many different opinions there are and we appreciate everyone who took the time to explain your opinion. We've thought about it a lot, and at this point, we are probably going to leave the ending mostly as is, with maybe only a few minor tweaks to get Lois to express her feelings more explicitly. We're concerned that adding more to the end of the story would take away from the impact of Clark's final line and that any talk they would have would have a "been there, done that" feel. In other words, we can't think of anything to add at this point that would be unique to this story.
Again, thank you to everyone who posted here or wrote us private feedback! We really appreciate your support, suggestions, and encouragement.
Kathy and Annie
How did you ever come up with that? 
The end of the year is just a few weeks away!! 
Oh wait! You mean, you