your sister did the funniest thing last night

in an attempt to draw notoriety and fame to my very newborn blog, to legitimize my nowhere near over binge drinking days and to score some sweet plastic storage containers (and hopefully something wiener dog related), i formally accept ben from no ordinary rollercoaster's challenge for best hangover in a blog.

the beginning:

i began my binge drinking career at age 15.5. my first taste of alcohol was in my kitchen the afternoon before the first day of sophomore year, a mix between something dark colored that was on the alcohol cabinet side of our walk-in pantry (right next to the SmartStart, very sneaky padres) and v8 splash, with my then and current best friend jen. she had tried alcohol a few weeks prior, and urged me to try it, while the rest of my family was out of the house somewhere or the other. it didn't taste good. but then again, it wasn't horrible either. neither was the giggling. or the blurred vision. (i probably had the equivalent of two shots, but i definitely felt it)

15.5 was a great age to begin binge drinking for one major reason. drivers licenses. we didn't have any. therefore, we were not at risk for drunk driving. our parents still picked us up from pre-approved social gatherings in time for curfew.

15.5 was a bad age to begin binge drinking for many other major reasons - such as it being very difficult to obtain alcohol, sneaking around behind our parents backs, oh and it being illegal. somehow we normally managed to find alcohol from friends' older siblings, or we made awful alcohol suicides from our parents liquor cabinets so we could get just enough alcohol to saturate our bloodstreams while not lowering the liquid levels in any one bottle a noticeable amount.

on this particular occasion, it was winter break, so a few of us were 16 (my friend whitney at least, fortunately not me). with six months under our belt, we considered ourselves veteran drinkers. one of our friend's parents had gone out of town. somewhere tropical. she had an older sister, who had older friends, who were rumored to be able to hook the party up with a keg and other assorted liquor drinks. whitney drove. we may have borrowed a wine cooler or three from jen's parent's fridge. i don't remember, but would've been standard practice.

i guess we got there late, because by the time we arrived at the party to find a mostly empty keg. disappointing. and there was very little spare alcohol to be found. we were savoring what remnants we could scrounge, playing drinking games, and making the best of it (read: calling all our other friends to find an alternate plan)

at some point, one of my current casual crushes arrived, carrying a fresh plastic bottle of the world's cheapest vodka, mccormicks. when he walked in the door it was like a mirage. i am certain he was moving in slow motion, back-lit, and there must have been a wind machine. or at least that's how i decide to remember it.

he was not inclined to share. in this situation, who can blame him. a crowd full of thirsty, underage, binge drinkers and that bottle is donezo.

somehow, i use my whiley ways to con him into sharing the bottle with me. actually, i dared him to go shot for shot with me. a dare he was certain he could win. i'm pretty sure that meant that we just took turns taking swigs directly out of the bottle, no chaser. undoubtedly, the vodka was room temperature, so roughly the flavor of rubbing alcohol. at least a quarter of a handle later, i was, well, drunk. i don't know who really won the dare, but in a game like that, aren't we all winners?

not very much time went by and i had just gone upstairs, probably chasing after another crush, when jen ran frantically after me, pulling me downstairs, grabbing my coat, and shoving me out the door and into the back seat of whitney's toyota tercel.

at exactly the same time, the alcohol hit my brain, and i was on about a 10-second delay. i had no idea what was going on. until, just as we pulled away, the trusty hometown village police force pulled into our friend's driveway. lights blazing.

i realized then that we were narrowly escaping our first misdemeanor - consumption of alcohol by a minor.

i still don't know who tipped jen off, but i never again doubted her psychic powers.

that's the last clear memory i have of the evening.

from flashes of drunk memories and whitney's first hand accounts, the rest of the night has been rebuilt:

after narrowly escaping a court date and a very uncomfortable conversation with our parents where the word 'disappointed' would've come out of their mouths repeatedly, we dropped jen off at her house. but not before we stopped off at our neighborhood pool parking lot because i was apparently begging to pee. and this was a more private location than someone's front yard (another place i regularly peed, in high school). on this particular occasion, the spot i chose was in the grass directly in front of the car, headlights on. see, i've been carrying my classy card since way back

one friend lighter, we headed to meet whitney's boyfriend at a friend's house in the neighborhood. all i remember is a basement. all they remember is all of the ridiculous things i was saying. there was potentially some dancing as well. and odds are i fell over. ok, there was definitely dancing, and from the bruises the next day, i definitley fell over. more than once.

by the time whitney dropped me off, in time for curfew, the euphoria was wearing off, and the nausea was coming in.

my mother wasn't the type to wait up for me. she could barely stay up past 10:30 and i didn't turn into a pumpkin until midnight. instead, i was supposed to go up and give my mom a kiss goodnight when i got in. i quickly learned, however that by midnight my mom was the kind of asleep where she wouldn't remember whether or not i woke her up by the next morning. so when i came in smelling like an old mans liquor cabinet (and probably parliament lites because those were cool then too), i ordinarily skipped this step and went straight to bed. when she woke up in the morning and accused me of not giving her a kiss, i would just tell her i did, and because there were so many times when i actually had woken her up and she still didn't remember, she was never the wiser.

on this particular occasion, however, judgment obviously clouded, i decided to not only give my mom a kiss, but to wake her up, and insist that she get up and sleep in my bed with me. for some reason, instead of being mad that i was obviously more than a few sheets to the wind, she just agreed.

as soon as i laid down, the room started spinning. like teacups at disney spinning. except someone else was turning the wheel, and i was just stuck there, spinning. as soon as i mentioned this my mom went into 'child with the flu' mode and immediately there was water on my bedside table and a trashcan next to my bed.

meanwhile, i lay in bed rolling back and forth pleading with her to take me to the doctor because there was no way i wasn't dying. at this my mom just laughed, calmly, assuring me that i did not need to go to the doctor, after all, what would they do? i was just drunk. why, pump my stomach, of course? i was pleading (please mom, i swear, call the ambliance, please, i'm dying, no, seriously mom, dying) to have my stomach pumped. bad sign.

my mom, laying calmly next to me in bed was completely unconcerned. she, so i found out later, was also familiar with the phenomenon i was experiencing - the kind of drunk where the room is spinning to an extent that you can't close your eyes but you can't keep them open either, because regardless, you are probably going to puke. a few years later, i came home one night, sober, to find her laying in my sister's bed. when asked why she was in there, she crooned, "Dear (my step-dad) wouldn't stop the room from spinning. why wouldn't he stop the room from spinning? he's so mean." apparently she had a few too many glasses/bottles of wine, at a work party. ohh mom. (don't worry, i provided water and a trash can, always one to return the favor).

back to the scene: mom on my right, trash can on my left. this is where i casually roll over and cough into the trash can to my left. and then....

...i roll over to the right...and puke...in the bed...and...on my mom.

i am still way too wasted to be horrified by this. my mom, also, is still calm as ever. and she just goes to work. dragging me to the bathroom, where i continued to lose my breakfast/lunch/dinner/stomach lining, but in an appropriate receptacle, for the first time tonight, changing her clothes, changing my sheets, and eventually, when she was absolutely certain there was nothing left in my stomach, dragging me back to bed.

i woke up in the morning as the memories of the night flooded my brain (mostly just the puking on my mom part). i was terrified. she didn't scream. she didn't yell. she just laughed and took care of me. i was certainly going to get my earful the next morning. smart mom. i definitely wouldn't have remembered it if you had last night. very smart.

but when i heard her coming down the hall, she was on the phone with my sister, who was away at college at the time, and this was all that i heard:

'your sister did the funniest thing last night'.

she never said a thing to me. just provided hydration and crackers.

why she wasn't mad, i didn't learn until much later. she apparently thought that i had learned my lesson when i spent the whole day in bed with my shades drawn, choking down saltines and water and begging for silence, and anti-nausea medication.

sorry mom, 8 years later, and i still have yet to learn my lesson.

8 years later this is also still my mom's favorite story, over thanksgivings, jewish holidays, work meetings, doctor's visits. along with her favorite comment, 'i don't know how she did so well in school with the amount of alcohol she drank.' thanks mom. your faith in me is a never-ending reassurance.

on a side note: those who did not hide in the basement or crawl out a window, were cited for underage drinking. fortunately, my casual crush made it out the window. the girl whose house it was, was not quite as fortunate.

the end.

now that i think about it. send the tupperware to mom. she deserves it. (i'll still take the wiener dog related award)

so i think that 'and then i puked on my mom' beats 'i got myself locked out of my dorm room, naked, the first week of freshman year', but if we need a tie-breaker, i'll pull that one out, in the clutch.

p.s.

Don't be a Jonze