this is kind of a long-ish story but it’s worth a read because i made a complete ASSHOLE out of myself, and in front of people (and that’s always funny, innit?). it’s been a while but i remember it vividly… well, no… no i don’t. i remember parts of it vividly and the rest of it was told to me by my husband (aka “homer”). i do remember that it had snowed…
it was the first week of january 2008 and we had been invited to a small birthday gathering for one of homer’s friends here in belfast. we got there and i didn’t know anyone and i was all full of insecurity but i had brought my spicy bloody mary ingredients and so really it wasn’t long before i was full of insecurity and half a pint of vodka. i am NOT a drinker and so my head started to spin a little. homer was sitting beside me on the couch so i put my head down on his shoulder – you know, “just for a second”.
in the space of that one second, homer managed to disappear (i must have dozed off briefly but he had only gone into another room to look at something music-related). i lifted my head and he was GONE… but everything was spinning and i was pretty sure i was gonna throw up, so i popped up off the couch and headed for the toilet. one of the people there started to say something to me and then saw the look on my face (apparently) and pointed me towards the aforementioned toilet.
i made it to the bathroom, but i didn’t quite make it to the toilet. i ALMOST made it, and in fact i can say that i MOSTLY made it, but i didn’t make it all the way. i’ve already said that i was drinking bloody marys…
so now i have to clean up a generous splash of used bloody marys off this guy’s bathroom floor, which would have been fine except that there were only TWO SQUARES of toilet paper and one small white hand towel in the whole entire bathroom. i did what i could with the TWO SQUARES of toilet paper and then grabbed the white hand towel. my PLAN was to finish cleaning up and then find the birthday boy and tell him that i absolutely MUST put a hand towel into his washing machine IMMEDIATELY, but thats not what happened at all because i blacked out within seconds of grabbing that white hand towel.
*flash forward*
suddenly i was in the hallway sitting on the floor by the door with my head on my knees. homer was leaning over me asking where my things were so he could collect them and get me home. i told him what and where they were and he went off to get them… and then i blacked out again.
*flash forward*
suddenly i was outside in the parking area being walked to the car with homer on one arm and the birthday boy on the other arm. i remember walking to the wrong side of the car (stoopid right-hand drives) and asking loudly, “WHY IS MY ASS WET??”…and then i blacked out again.
*flash forward*
suddenly i was in the passenger seat of the car which was parked in our own driveway. i said to homer, “oh are we home now?” and he replied, “yes. for quite some time now.” (i do vaguely recall telling him that “i’ll be fine here” meaning “i’ll just sleep in the car tonight” but fortunately he didn’t fall for it). i swung my feet out of the car and onto the ground, had a small follow-up vomit while homer held my hair, stood up and walked to the front door… and then i blacked out again.
the next thing i remember is waking up the next morning at 7am. i only felt a little bit shit so i took some aspirin and went back to bed for a couple of hours. i got back up at 9am and was fine. it was around this time that homer filled me in on all the missing bits from the night before, and then i spent the next hour writing an apology email to the birthday boy because this is what had happened:
after i blacked out the first time while cleaning up the mess i made, i just stopped cleaning and wandered off instead. the birthday boy went into his bathroom, saw the mess, cleaned up the mess, went into his living room and said “someone threw up in my bathroom” and put the towel in the washing machine. someone else said to homer, “i think your wife isn’t feeling well” so he found me sitting in the hallway on the floor with my head on my knees and asked me where my stuff was and i told him and he went to get it (and this is where i blacked out the second time). when he came back a few seconds later with my stuff, i was gone. apparently i was feeling sick again and headed out the front door where i vommed AGAIN, but this time it was right outside the front door… in the snow.
did i mention that i was the only one drinking tomato-based alcoholic beverages that night? so yeah, it was pretty fucking obvious who was doing all the barfing.
and then… after i barfed IN this guy’s house and then shortly thereafter [practically] ON his house, i went down two flights of snow-covered stairs and sat down on the bottom step, in the snow (THAT’S WHY MY ASS WAS WET!) which is where homer and the birthday boy found me after determining that i was no longer indoors. they walked me to the car and homer drove me home and i wouldn’t get out of the car for quite some time but then i did after i vommed a little bit more and he helped me upstairs and took my clothes off and then he stayed awake for about another hour making sure that i was breathing properly because he said when he first put me in bed, i did that drunk person sleep apnea-like thing where i exhaled for a long time and then took long enough before i breathed again that it made him a little bit nervous, but i was okay.
…and that was the last time i got drunk. i’ll still have a cocktail now and again, but i don’t get drunk anymore.
on a side note – the guy i had never met before that night but whose house i barfed all over 5 years ago? the one whose birthday it was? the one that helped my husband get my drunk ass into the car?
he’s my personal trainer now.
heh.
