Know what’s not awesome?
Hangovers.
No matter how much fun you are having at the time, there is a limit that every person can contain…we all know what it is, even if we pretend that we don’t. If you push yourself beyond those limits, there will be consequences. You may think you will trick them this time…subvert them by drinking ten gallons of water and enough starch to feed all of Italy. But come six A.M., I promise you, your consequences will be hurling themselves at a toilet bowl, as invisible red-hot pokers skewer your brains.
Over and over and over again.
…About the time that you think you might die of dehydration and regurgitation of all your inside parts (like a sea cucumber)…that is when you realize that maybe drinking isn’t your real superpower…maybe you mistook this thing that you thought was your “gift”…and maybe you never wanna see alcohol or food ever, ever again.
It’s a quick way to lose eight pounds in a day and catch up on your bed rest. Other than that, it’s really limited in the “usefulness” department of life.
Saturday was one of those days for me.
Listen, I don’t drink to excess all that often. I never even got my first hangover until age thirty-one (unwisely timed the same day as a tech cue-to-cue.) I may joke about it a lot…but sister here doesn’t deal well with projectiles coming out of my mouth at mock the speed of sound. Mouths are for eating, drinking and kissing. If you want, you can use yours to talk too. What they are not for are assassination attempts on your life. Even if it is sorta your own fault. And especially if you weren’t completely outta control to achieve it all.
This is where “age” starts to suck.
…I mean, come on…there was no hard liquor involved, no mixing of the beer and energy drinks. Just a couple bottles of wine (each)…and some late night pasta. That’s all. What could possibly go wrong with this combo? Certainly people have done it before this. Thousands of people have. Ok, sure…they’re Italian and French and are weaned on it from birth, but if I used that excuse based on my own genetic profile, I’d be able to swill Tequila like water. (Which I found out this one time, that I can’t.)
…The point is: It wasn’t nearly as bad as it could have been. And also, by 6 A.M. there was nothing left over in the “process” department, to spew. Just water products. Not that terrifying blood-bath of red wine one would expect in such circumstances. Instead, I hugged onto my little bucket, with a bad case of the shakes, and tied my hair in a knot on top of my head, squeezing tears out silently (along with my dignity) on repeat over the next three hours.
Three. Hours.
I don’t even know what I could have left to get rid of at that point. Kidneys? Brain matter? At last I just gave into the beast and decided to stop feeding it even water…that dieing might just be my best bet at that point. So I tried to ignore the voice in my head to push more liquids, and passed into a coma-like sleep instead. Honestly, I really cared very little about the eventual outcome and which would win out. I only felt a little bit bad for whoever might stumble onto the body laying beside a bowl of pink Pepto vomit, that I clearly was in no condition to clean out prior to my untimely passing.
Not to totally blow the ending or anything, but I didn’t end up dieing after all. You may have guessed that by now, however. Waking, instead, with the taste of roadkill and rotting sea creatures in my mouth, (which we are all familiar with)…I plodded my way to the kitchen for the making of hot tea and a cold compress of frozen veggies on my brains.
Because I am an adult grown-up!
It’s my word against everyone elses!
I getta pick how I spend my Holidays, dammit!
I getta choose for myself!
This is the thing that they never tell you when you’re a kid: the glory of excess.
…And how it will mock you from the toilet.
…And when you clean out your own barf-bowl.
~D
