The first time I ever got drunk was my freshman year in college. Okay, so it may sound like I'm a late bloomer, but my parents weren't very uptight about alcohol. My sister and I were allowed wine on Thanksgiving, champagne at New Years, and the occasional sip from somebody's beer can. So in my junior high and high school days, alcohol wasn't this big taboo that I felt the urge to unlock and dive into.
But freshman year is the time for new things, and when one of the legal juniors announced a liquor run one evening, I decided it was time to explore the New World. Problem was, I had no idea what the hell I wanted. I had not yet developed a taste for beer, I didn't think champagne was appropriate for a September evening, and a bottle of wine seemed like too much of an investment. When I mentioned that I had had wine before, someone suggested I try Bruce Willis' greatest claim to fame -- Seagram's Golden Wine Coolers. Four in a pack? Relatively alcoholic? Not too expensive? Count me in. Money was exchanged, good-byes said, and the wait began.
About half an hour later the good arrived, and I was staring at a four-pack of this little gold-labeled bottles. Deciding not to hesitate, I jumped in and took a drink of the first one.
Call me a girl, but I liked it.
I liked it so much the first one was gone in about five minutes. Not wanting it to be lonely, I dove into the second one. The second one missed its brother Number 3, so down it went. We were approximately fifteen minutes into my first drinking experience at this point when I made perhaps one of the stupidest decisions I have ever made.
I got hungry. And found salvation in half a can of honey roasted peanuts.
Ah, salt and sugar!
Now, that salt worked up a thirst, so the orphan of the pack got downed, and there I was -- young, drunk, and full of peanuts, less than half and hour after the binge started.
And for a while, things were grand. That wonderful floating feeling came over me, we listened to Comfortably Numb in the dark, all good fun.
Then the bed spins started.
Everyone was very helpful about it. "Put one leg on the floor," they said, "it'll ground you." Problem was, these bed spins were occurring on the ground, so that wasn't an option, and putting a leg up on the bed only helped to add a new axis to the whole procedure. This continued for a while, and then the next thing I know I'm being shaken on the couch in the lounge being told I should go to bed.
This being my first experience with the time traveling properties of alcohol, I was justifiably confused, but soon got my bearings and headed down the hall. As I neared the bathroom, I firmly placed a hand on each wall of the hallway and with all the braggadoccio I could muster said, "Wait!" A hush fell. Was I in fact not done for the evening? Would the Great Drinking Expirement of 1986 continue?
"Let me make sure I don't have to throw up."
Into the bathroom I rushed, and this next part I have no memory of. It is only through the many and reverent recollections that followed me through the rest of my college days that I know what happened from that point on. Apparently, upon entering the bathroom and assuming the position, I marked the coming of my first forcible purging of alcohol with a phrase that became the "Frankly my dear I don't give a damn" to my Rhett Butler:
"Oh yay!"
And then I'm told followed a torrent of groans and gurgles that nearly kicked of a peristaltic chain reaction across the entire floor. This wasn't simpy a Technicolor yawn, this was a digital print with THX sound and rocking chair seats in an auditorium-style theater. Just amazing amounts of puking.
Finally, spent and empty, I staggered from the bathroom, leaned heavily against the doorframe, looked at my friends with a vomit-lined grin and said simply, "Now I am a man." None dared argue, and I finally made my way to my bed and oblivion.
God I miss college sometimes.
But about six years ago, I accepted a challenge from a friend of mine of Tequila shots. We went head to head all night long and went through an entire bottle ourselves.
