Someone wanted to hear a drunk story, and I’m the most obliging soul you’ll ever meet. She got her own copy, and first — aren’t you jealous you’re not her? — but you guys are at least good enough for sloppy seconds.

It occurs to me that I don’t have that many really good drunk stories, mainly because I’ve been pretty good about never getting *that* drunk. And those few times that I have gotten *that* drunk, I get ****that**** drunk where there aren’t any stories to tell except that one where I vomit, pass out, and then rise from the dead three days later. A little like the Messiah stories, only more painful and a lot more expensive. Oh, and replace the chorus of angels with obnoxious voices in my head.

There was the first drinking party I ever went to, of course. I was 15 or 16 (keep in mind that I started school a little early and skipped first grade, so remembering how old I was at specific points in high school is disorienting sometimes), and there were a bunch of us at a friend’s house on a Friday night. Parents out of town, liquor cabinet stocked and loaded, and there was a package store in a rough part of town that would have sold to my baby sister if she was carrying cash. We were well set up.

This, coincidentally, contains the source of my dislike for all alcohols except vodka.

Specifically, the evil game called quarters, which, much to my dismay, I am terrible at. It seems that 10 years of soccer playing and training is not at all helpful to a sixteen-year-old aiming a coin at a shot glass.

So the night moves on, as does my liver, getting it’s first real taste of what’s in store for it later in life. (Hey, at least it had finally found it’s purpose, right?) Too many rounds of quarters, and everything’s starting to get a little fuzzy around the edges. I can feel the potpourri of gin, tequila, scotch, and rum bubbling inside of me, warm and happy and I’m seven feet tall and bullet-proof.

The house we were in sits on top of a tall and fairly steep hill, with (for reasons I still can’t figure) no stairs. Just a long driveway and plenty of grassy slope. On reflection, being that drunk and thinking that I should go get something out of my car (parked on the road) was probably ill-considered, but what’s a sixteen year old to do (ah, I was driving — that settles the age issue)? The downhill wasn’t the problem, but rather the return trip; climbing that driveway was akin to mounting Everest. Much like the climbers who have conquered that peak, I apparently decided that I needed a rest about three quarters of the way up. A rest, and perhaps a good vomit. Yes, that’s exactly the ticket.

Thank god that my friend Jason had been standing at the front door of the house, waiting for Godot or something equally random. He was able to get to me and roll me over before the river of my stomach was able to creep back down the driveway into my almost sleeping self — forgetting about the little thing called gravity, I had thrown up uphill, and then laid down for a short nap.

Siesta interrupted, we went back inside the house and, as all good teenagers will do, proceeded to refill me. Can’t have anyone paying attention to the signs their body gives them, now, can we?

More quarters, and before too long, I’m in the back of the kitchen, refusing any more rounds for myself. Everyone else is still going strong, though — strong enough that someone has started using shot glasses as ashtrays, and no one notices (or maybe minds).

We suddenly notice that Tony, the biggest and surliest of the bunch, is missing, and has been for a bit. Someone recalls him going to the bathroom, and so Jason and Greg and I head off to find the missing drunken Italian (think Penn Jillette, squashed down a bunch). We hear moans coming from the closed door of the bathroom, and so, as good friends will do when concerned… we knock. And we hear what seems to be a cross between retching and a strangled “WHAT?” Silence, then we knock again. “Tony? You okay?” And once again, that horrible cross between speech and gagging.

Turns out that Tony was just trying to purge a little, but in his irritated and drunken state, had forgetten that he was about to vomit, and so turned annoyed toward the door both times to say “what?” Once to his left, and once to his right… Apparently determined to cover the of-dubious-taste wallpaper. Job well done…

The clean up for that party must have been a bitch and a half.

———-

Okay, not as funny as I thought. But it beats the time that I fell asleep in my apartment with the front door wide open. I woke up to go to work, and couldn’t find my car. Or my pants. Turns out that I had decided, about three blocks from my place, that I was too drunk to drive the rest of the way, and so walked uphill the last three blocks (I had already driven about fifteen miles from the bar). And for some reason had taken my pants off about a block from my house and left them hanging on a fence.

That story’s probably hilarious, at least to whoever knows what really happened that night.

That was the last time I got blackout drunk.

But, hey, the future is wide open…