A New Page

In 2014, I was living in Tennessee and teaching English to international students at a mid-sized university’s language center: ESL for ELC at ETU. My job was to get my classes ready for college in a few months from whatever level of English they had when they arrived in the United States. It was fun, and confusing, and frustrating, and rewarding. At that time, I was also involved in hosting lots of events outside of my day job.

I booked a flight to New York to host an annual event that I had run before. If I figured it right, my plan was to do it all in one weekend by flying out on a Friday afternoon and returning on a Monday afternoon.

Did I let my language center director know my plans? Absolutely not. Did I leave the students with a scavenger hunt to run around campus Friday and duck out of my own class responsibilities super early to get to the airport? Absolutely. Was I going to call in sick on Monday morning from New York City? Obviously! Pretty tight plan, right?

I brought one piece of luggage- a carry-on wheelie bag- with some clothes and of course my small black notebook full of the year’s worth of priceless material: my quips on the news, quirky observations, silly word play, and one liners. It was all I needed to wow the crowd at a comedy club on Broadway while introducing the folks who would hopefully really bring the funny.

One dangerous part about producing and hosting comedy shows: it usually meant free drinks. In hindsight, that is probably a large part of why I got into producing and hosting shows multiple nights a week in every city I’ve ever lived. Drinking, socializing, networking, promoting, crafting plans, and “business meetings” could only happen in the late night hours after shows and with great success. The stage rush never let me sleep anyway, so I tried to use that adrenaline “productively.”

The first show of the New York event was Saturday night. And it was fun... from what I remember. I crashed on a buddy’s couch and got up and at ‘em fairly early the next day. My goal was to whirlwind through Manhattan eating all of my favorite things: a bagel from Select-A-Bagel, a giant chicken parm pizza slice from Italian Villaggio Pizza, some spicy street meat chicken and lamb with “white sauce, hot sauce, boss” from a Halal truck, and maybe even a reuben from a Jewish delicatessen. Eating so much would give me a solid base for the assured post show boozing and celebrating.

The show was a blast as usual and then… I carried on and on and on. I had my suitcase with me since I didn’t know where I would end up that night. And from one Hell’s Kitchen dive to another I went.

At Ruby’s on 45th Street and 9th Avenue I sat with friends and enjoyed pitcher after pitcher of the cheapest beer they had, which was accompanied by free popcorn and free hot dogs. Yes, free hot dogs. A table nearby was full of guys who must have just gotten off work at the jerk store. They thought it was funny to throw hot dog buns at each other. Well, some of those buns went astray and flew our way.

The show we had just finished was partly sponsored by an adult toy shop. I had in my bag, a collection of giveaways. That is right- I had in my posession several prize dildos in various shapes, colors, and sizes.

Somewhere in my drunk brain, I thought it would be a good idea to cram into the booth at the table of the jerk store staff and plop a mid-sized neon pink rubber shaft right into one of their beers. Dumbfounded, the owner of the beer said I ruined his drink. But his buddies laughed and laughed. I gladly demonstrated the drinkability of the brew by removing “Pinky” and chugging it down to prove him wrong. I then offered to buy him a new one since he was so butt hurt. Steam was coming out of his ears. I handed him a fresh cold beer and I told him it was not very nice to throw hot dog buns around such a fine establishment. One could end up with dildos in their beers.

Avoiding a “Times Square funny guys” vs “Wall Street bros battle”, we left the free hot dog bar and wandered down the block. The next stop was an Irish bar for another round of drinks and Jameson. It was an “Irish bar” which called for Irish whiskey of course. Some car bombs, too. This all made sense. Then, we made it farther down the block to the infamous Smitty’s Bar. But Smitty’s bouncer had a problem with me taking my suitcase inside… and possibly the amount of alcohol I had already had inside my system.

Since rules rarely applied to me, I slipped past with my bag while the bouncer was distracted talking to others and grabbed a drink at a side table. I chatted it up with some fine folks there who excitedly shared their possession of some cocaine back at their apartment. It was at that moment that the bouncer realized I had snuck past him and had been sitting there enjoying a vodka gimlet with my carry-on wheelie bag poking into the aisle.

He picked my bag up, walked to the front door, and launched it into the street. I instinctively downed my cocktail and ran outside to rescue my bag, my clothes, my little black book!

I waited outside, after saving my bag, for the crew inside to finish up quickly. The extra curriculars were calling. We hailed a cab to go to- Where? Their apartment? For what? Cocaine? What time was it? No idea.

We squished into the cab. I had my bag on my lap and the cabbie insisted I get out and put it in the trunk. He said there was just not enough room. I thought that was odd because I was already inside the car with my bag on my lap, but I obliged and got out and put it in the trunk.

Naturally when we arrived and got out at our new best friends’ pad, the cabbie peeled the fuck out . . . bag, clothes, notebook and all...

“That sucks,” everyone said, but immediately looked ahead to the high rise apartment impromptu party to be. My little black notebook was not their problem.

Would I find it in the morning? Would I call the Taxi commission? Would anything become of it? Nope. Would I somehow end up in Hoboken, New Jersey? Yup. Would I have to get back to NYC to get to JFK airport by noon for my flight home? Indeed. Was the sun up? Yup. What time was it? Holy shit! Almost forgot! It is Monday morning. Time to call in sick!

Fuck.

Here I was up all night and having to call my boss, one of the nicest people I have to this day ever worked for, to say I had had some nasty stomach bug… puking and crapping and napping and crapping and napping all morning. It could have been the sign of a bad flu, or a sign of a night filled with pitchers and pitchers of cheap beer and questionable cocaine. But, she would never know.

In my head, I wasn’t lying. Weave enough partial truths together and leave out the part where even if you had wanted me to drag myself to teach my classes that day, it would have been impossible. Because I was not in Tennessee. I was 700 miles away. And I had not slept for 24 hours.

The hangover began to really set in: the kind of hangover where you are sure you have an axe lodged in your head. Plus, I was feeling a bit gutless for lying to one of the sweetest people on the planet. I had only moments to throw together substitute lesson plans for the day and send them in an email.

I quickly searched my old emails, scraped together some activities reusing the lesson plans from the last “sick day” and clicked send. Phew! I was in the clear.

A sick day. Somewhat valid. I was a sick person and looking forward to those airport bar final boarding call drinks. I was also in need of a shower and some new clothes, so I headed to OutfittingUrbaners to buy a salerack outfit. Then, I toured a New York Gym Club for a free day pass just to shower and change. Finally, the home stretch was to the airport to catch some drinks and my flight back to Tennessee.

I really thought I had it all figured out. Maybe I had some people fooled, but looking back, the biggest fool was me. I am glad to have that chapter behind me. Quitting drinking wasn’t easy, but the benefits are worth it. No need to constantly be trying to keep your stories straight. No hangovers. Less lost things.

Who would have guessed that with honesty and clear headedness today, I experience another dimension of existence, and unexpectedly earn an extra $20,000 annually? For those of you doing the math, that is about a $10,000 raise, plus money from not spending nearly $10,000 a year on alcohol. Seriously.

As I sat on the return flight watching some awful movie, getting my seat back kicked by a toddler, and having the flight sickness bag in hand and ready to go, I finally had a moment to myself. I mourned the loss of that small black book. A whole year of thoughts and quips and jokes were gone.

I stared out the window as we were cruising above the clouds at 35,000 feet. The kicking stopped, and I heard the 3 year-old behind me…

“Dad... Where is God?”

I was going to need a new notebook.