After my Thanksgiving post being more about drinking and hangovers than food, as it should have been, I decided I sound like a borderline alcoholic. I’ve decided to reinforce that idea with the worst drinking experience of my life.
I have never had a flat out awesome New Year’s Eve. By the time I was old enough to go out with friends and celebrate properly with kegs at some kid’s party in high school, a series of misfortunate events would always take place. I would make out with some kid by accident or end up at a lame party. Even through college nothing memorable would happen. I often have a problem of making a big deal about New Year’s Eve. “Gotta get fucked up!” I would always stupidly leave for the evening with less than enough food in my stomach to absorb all the alcohol I planned on drinking. The result was usually a puke fest. There are at least 3 incidents I can recall where this happened. The first happens to be the worst hangover of my life.
By the time I was 18 years old I had been drinking for a couple of years. Like every suburban town, that was just what you did on the weekends. Cheap beer and drinking games. So I had a decent tolerance by the time I was 18. If I didn’t, I’m fairly certain the story below would have resulted in alcohol poisoning and a trip to the emergency room.
*I believe I was actually 17 years old, as my birthday is in January.
I began that fateful day by driving my brother to his friend’s house for his festivities, who lived about 30 minutes away. I can’t recall why I was driving him. He’s six years older than me. I want to say it was due to his attempt to be responsible for his actions and take away the drinking and driving option, but that just doesn’t sound like him. Anyway, he had bought me a bottle of Grey Goose Vodka as a thank you.
This became a prized possession. It should be understood that I was drinking the cheapest of vodka, from plastic bottles. An upscale bottle of booze was like gold sparkling in front of me.
There were several events happening this day. It was my senior year of high school and I was finally friends with enough people in our small town to have enough parties to hop to. My night was packed, with a schedule.
My friend picked me up and we started the evening with a typical Mountain Trip. I don’t want to incriminate myself here, but it’s an important part of later events. We went on a drive to smoke a blunt. Don’t judge. Being 17 and in the burbs of NJ, there was nothing else to do. All kids smoke a little in high school. But I had been saving a nugget that was given to my for Christmas. As a rule, people will always say that you want your bud ‘sticky.’ But this was the good stuff. G-14 or some silly name that was given to mean it was a strain from the government and thus perfect. So I kept it in a little box in my room and let it dry so that there were tiny crystals everywhere. My plan was to smoke a midnight bowl as a celebration. This did not happen. As I was rolling the blunt I accidentally added my special nugget. The result was mind blowing. I remember being calm yet happy yet incredibly silly. I was also really fucking thirsty.
My friend dropped me off at another friend’s house where we were to pregame before hitting the first party. I unleashed the bottle of gloriousness and made a screwdriver. It was the most amazing screwdriver ever. I decided we were running out of time and I needed to drink faster. I took to doing shots and chasing them with orange juice. I cannot tell you if I was the only one doing this. Sadly, I probably was. For some god awful reason, I was on a mission. At one point I decided that I didn’t even need a chaser. This vodka tasted like water. Sweet delicious nectar that I couldn’t get enough of.
I don’t know how much of that bottle I drank. A lot. Possibly the whole thing.
We began walking to the first party, which was on the same side of town. I couldn’t walk on my own. I was literally being propped up by two of my friends. It’s cool. We’re going to a party. It’s New Year’s Eve.
Oh. Side note. I have a huge problem about deciding things that I assume the rest of the world knows/ agrees with. I have this argument that you are given 3 passes every year to get as disgusting/ can’t talk/ look like an asshole drunk as you want. And that you’re not responsible for your actions and everyone must understand. These days are your birthday, St. Patrick’s Day, and New Year’s Eve.
So as I stumbled/ was carried to the first party of the evening (probably before 9pm), I was thinking I had a clear pass and was allowed to look like as much of a hot mess as I wanted.
I was wrong.
The first party we went to was at my friend Kyle’s. It was a family party.
FAIL.
I’m fully aware that we had to leave because of me. Specifically because I was falling down drunk and his mom didn’t want some drunk girl dying in her house. To be fair, I can only imagine what an embarrassment I was. And I wasn’t even of legal drinking age.
I know someone has a very incriminating photo of me propping myself up on a car, trying to light a cigarette. I think my eyes were half open.
The next thing I remember is being at another party, this time a sweet house party with drunk kids doing whippits and all that kind of fun stuff. I’m pretty sure as soon as we got there I made a B line for the bathroom where I proceeded to throw up my entire life, or that’s what it felt like. Some very kind soul found me putting my guts up and offered to drive me home.
I say this proudly, as I remember specifically asking him if he had been drinking! He was the designated driver for the night (shitty) and took me home.
Oh wow, crazy story. Shitty night. As if it ends there.
Arriving home, I was met with a whole new challenge. My parents had a classy dinner party every year. This meant 4-5 other couples getting buzzed and eating delicious food that my parents made in our dining room.
I’m going to take a moment to describe the layout of my house. Normally one enters through our garage, which makes a ton of noise to open and close. You then walk down a hallway and go up a flight of stairs. To the left is the dining room, enclosed by a wall where the stairs are. To the right is a wide open living room, with another set of stairs leading to the third floor and bedrooms. GOAL.
The last thing I wanted to do was make an ass out of myself in front of my parents and their friends by stumbling through the house, unable to speak really at all and pass out somewhere halfway to my bedroom.
Oh. It was before midnight. I didn’t even make it to midnight!
I would like to imagine that I stealthily crept in through the back door, but I know myself well enough to know that I opened the garage door as fast as possible. (It’s one of those huge doors that you have to pull from the ground up over your head.) There’s a memory somewhere of me rolling into the garage, not on purpose. That may have been something else, but let’s pretend it’s part of this story.
Cue sloppy drunk girl, hauling heavy garage door over her head and fighting to bring it back down as fast as possible. The force causes and ninja roll onto the cement ground. Yes, that sounds right.
After a moment of recovery, I stumbled my way into the house and listened for a moment to see where the diners were.
Oh. More obstacles. The fucking pugs. These dogs bark at everything. It doesn’t matter that I live there and they clearly know me. They will bark at you until you pet them. Assholes.
So the order of things changes. I stumbled in, lunged for the fucking dogs and clobbered them with hugs to keep them from barking. Then I surveyed the situation. I took haggard steps down the hallway, listening for voices. Somehow, at this point I hadn’t drawn any attention. Amazing.
I started climbing and heard them all at the dinner table. I still praise my mother for setting up the furniture in a way that allowed me to slip past them unnoticed. I danced up the second flight of stairs and had a realization.
I was sleeping in my sister’s room that night because family from out of town were staying in my room.
Fuck. I had to share the room. I pranced down the hallway and fell into my sister’s room. All I wanted to do was go to bed. But all my body wanted to do was keep puking. I kept making runs back and forth to the point where I was puking up nothing.
Finally, the commotion startled my mother, who was unaware that someone was home. My father, in all honesty, was probably wasted at this point. (I had to get it from someone!) When she found me draped pathetically across my sister’s bed, she ran over and very concerned, asked if everything was ok. She asked me if I had gotten into a fight with my friends.
I cannot describe exactly what I looked or sounded like at this point, but I’m sure it was just a jumble of words that poured out of my mouth. I looked right at my mom and said with the most casual tone I could muster, “Eh. I just don’t feel that great.” Or something along the lines that I had a light cold or mishap and I was being responsible by coming home. I’m serious when I say I thought I pulled it off. I remember putting my head back down and thinking, “damn, you’re good. No one has any idea.”
I found out the next day that my parents weren’t even angry with me. Of course they knew! How could they not? And I could have gotten away with it. My mom said she only knew someone was home because she heard the pipes from the toilet flushing. Fucking pipes!!
My mom and sister talked about how they both hung out in the room when she had gotten home, eating and talking. I was apparently dead to the world. And my father proceeded to make me the greasiest breakfast ever, hand over some advil, and tell me about the worst hangover he ever had.
And that’s why I swore off vodka for 5 years.
Roaring Tiger 