The Hangover

I think most people can agree that being drunk can be awesome, but being hungover can be worse than death. Some hangovers aren’t that bad, if all you got is a little dry mouth and a light headache; you are one lucky bastard. Some hangovers are like having a demon possess your body and it wants to reenact scenes from the Exorcist.

Let me tell you a tale about Merlot, carnitas, and tequila.

I went out one night with a group of friends and we started off at a Mexican restaurant, with the best carnitas tacos I’ve ever had. They also had this special margarita that was the size of a large cereal bowl and you had to have at least two people for every one that you ordered. So between six of us, we ordered 3. Which I think equaled at least a bottle and a half of tequila.

After that, we decided to hit a club downtown.

Sounds pretty simple right?

We get into this club, and order more drinks.

I should mention at this point that I am a messy drunk bitch. I like to experiment and order different cocktails and then take any shot that is placed in front of me. The shots sometimes weren’t ordered for me, but if they were in my reach they were mine.

So, because I have a reputation of being a messy drunk drunk stealing bitch, my friends take turns watching me and stealing drinks from me.

I feel you sitting there judging me, but don’t pity my friends. We take turns being the messy drunk bitch and that night it was my turn, okay? I had babysat my friend the previous time we went out drinking, and that boy sneaks away and hides and thinks it's funny.

So, back to my actual story.

We got to this club and I thought to myself ‘I will stick to Merlot and not order cocktails.’ In my mind at that time, this made sense. The worst hangovers I had had in my life prior to this night, were all after I had every mixed drink that was on a menu. The least painful hangovers were after mixing just beer and some liquor. I remember thinking to myself ‘Tequila and Merlot, this will be fine’.

To be completely honest with you, random reader, I have no clue how many glasses of Merlot I had that night. Every time my glass got emptied into my belly, another magically appeared before me. I blacked out somewhere between glass numbers 4 and 10 and woke up on a table. And then I got two more glasses of wine and we left. We all decided to get rooms at this hotel that was down the street from the club.

I remember successfully skipping two blocks, everyone else says that I didn’t actually skip but I very clearly remember the skipping. I did face plant in front of a Panera, I got distracted by a picture of a cup of hot chocolate. When we got to the hotel, one of my friends grabbed me and another girl who was waaay messier than me; they held us still and told us to shut the fuck up and be quiet or else we can never come back to this hotel.

I forgot to mention, we were also singing ‘the Wonderful Wizard of Oz’ as we skipped.

So, two people grabbed me and two people grabbed the other girl and walked us through the lobby as quickly as we could stumble.

I hit the bed and was out.

I woke up at 5 am and spent the next four hours periodically emptying my stomach into the toilet.

My head felt like elves were tapping inside my skull with tiny hammers. I was sweating and shivering and dry heaving. I had to wear sunglasses just to get into the bathroom with the lights off.

Around 10 a.m. someone rammed a tree trunk against the door, at least that's what it sounded like. I opened it and my friend on the other side looked at me like I had grown another head. I must have looked like a train wreck, wearing the same clothes from the night before, paler than a ghost, and still needing sunglasses in a darkened room.

"You, uh, ready to go?" He asked quietly.

"Stop...the noises...just need my bag." I grumbled as I grabbed my bag and shut the door behind me.

We met the others at a doughnut shop across the street from the hotel. The other girl who was happily skipping with me last night was now hunched over hugging her backpack and turning green at the smell of sweet sugar and stale coffee. I sat next to her and tried to sip some water.

That was a bad decision. My stomach immediately started churning and I ran to the counter to ask for a key to the bathroom. The child reluctantly handed me the key, I honestly don't blame her. If I was working at a coffee shop at minimum wage and a herd of hungovers adults stumbled in, I wouldn't give up the key to a green woman with her hand over her mouth. Who wants to clean that up?

I spent 10 minutes dry heaving over a surprisingly clean toilet. I splashed some cold water on my face and the tsunami or nausea passed. I took a couple deep breaths and exited.

As I was handing the key back, I opened my mouth to say thank you.

Let me take a moment to explain how hungover throwing up works. There are two ways, in my own personal experience, that it comes up.

The first, and most usual way, is you actually feel it building up in your espohogus and you have between 2 and 5 minutes to find a toilet or trash can . Once that demon is expelled from your body, you can move on with your day. Take a couple tylenols, drink some water, and don't eat anything heavy for the rest of the day.

The second way is the one the Devil curses you with to embarrass you. This particular way is hard to explain to anyone who hasn't experienced it, but I'll try. Sometimes, when you open your mouth to burp or even just exhale a breath, it results in you expelling whatever was on your way to your stomach. There is no warning. You don't have time to prepare. You just have to accept that you will be the most embarrassing person in a quarter mile vicinity. Accept it. That's all you can do.

When I opened my mouth to say thank you to this sweet, unsuspecting teenager; the Devil cursed me with the second way to vomit.

I tried to cover my mouth, but as you suspect it did not help.

In a small way to be thankful, it didn't reach the counter, just the floor. So clean up was at least minimal.

"I am so sorry." I ran back to the bathroom with the key still in my hand. I washed the key several times, I washed my face and hands several times. I was bright red with embarrassment when I left the bathroom.

"I hope you feel better!" Said the teen girl and waved at me as I left.

"Don't drink." I muttered back at her.

My friends gave me a hard time about it, until the other skipper starting hurling into a bush and then we had to leave.

When I got home, I just laid in the bathtub and took a nap.

In conclusion, don't mix a bottle of tequila, maybe 2 bottles of Merlot, and carnitas. I would say just don't drink in general but, we all make mistakes.