Anybody that knows me, knows that I have quite a number of epic tales of excessive inebriation from across the world, stretching as far as distant exotic locations such as Beijing and Shanghai, to a few blocks down Broadway here in New York City. Being an undergraduate college student, I suppose nothing less than drunken adventures and swashbuckling escapes from the law are expected. I suppose I have made the most of my youth and energy, but I made a little too much.
Last week, yet another quest was added to my epic memoirs as friends gathered to celebrate the twenty-second anniversary of a close friend’s escape from the womb. The time was joyous and many jovial toasts were made to life and happiness. I don’t exactly remember how many there were but clearly too much. As party began to die out, I found myself drunk, staggering, and restraining an uncontrollable urge to lift heavy objects.
I don’t quite understand why I do it or why I even feel the need to do it, but for some reason, whenever I become thoroughly inebriated I feel a strange urge to pick people up - picking people up as in physically lifting their bodies. This applies to both males and females. Not only do I fail to understand the unusual compulsion, but it’s also not a very good idea since I’m usually very unbalanced while under the influence of alcohol. This time, like many other times, I yet again succumbed to the urge to lift another human being. Again, like many other times before, it was a very regrettable idea.
As soon as I lifted someone up - the girl immediately in front of me as she just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time - I immediately lost my balance and sent myself (and her) careening into a wall. I wound up ramming her head into the wall pretty hard, but I took the brunt of the damage. I sat down in front of the pillar of my unbecoming as horrified onlookers rushed over to investigate the damage I had done. The girl was hurt, but more or less okay, I couldn’t say exactly the same about my face.
Almost as though they were a chorus, all the concerned onlookers chanted in unison “You’re bleeding!” Indeed, it appeared as though I was bleeding from two newly punctured wounds on my face, my nose and the gums surrounding my two front teeth. A friend who attended the party just happened to be a trained EMT and not especially trashed, so he was rushed over for a more technical observation of the damage. He performed the standard procedures on me and concluded that I should be fine. However, I didn’t feel fine.
Since I slammed my face into the pillar, I was smiling and grinning as though I were thoroughly amused. My intention for doing so was because I felt extreme pain in my two front teeth and I was gravely worried that my teeth were loose. I was not amused. In great fear that I would suddenly have a gaping hole in the front of my face, I asked the nice EMT, “Will I still be beautiful?”
Perhaps that was not the most modest choice of wording, but I don’t think anything else could have more succinctly phrased my primary concern at the time. The EMT asked me many questions about how I was feeling, but I evaded all of them, unwilling to leave the question of “Will I still be beautiful?” unresolved.
For the most part, I was fine. I did not suffer a concussion (nor did the poor girl in my arms) nor did I break my nose. I just became hysterical and started running around the house, maintaining the same stupid smile and yelling, “Am I still beautiful? Will I still be beautiful tomorrow?” Trying to calm down, friends brought me to bed.
The next morning came and thanks to much compensatory water drinking the night before, I didn’t have a headache but my teeth were in severe pain. Given my general feeling of discomfort, I immediately tossed all of my clothes into my laundry bin and went to take a shower. Emerging from the shower like emerging from the dead, I felt renewed and ready to begin a new day. It just so happened that I needed to leave immediately for an important gathering of student leaders so I prepared to head out.
But where the fuck were my glasses?
I must have looked around for my glasses for two hours and with each passing minute I only became increasingly more anxious. Those who know me know that I am extremely nervous about losing my glasses. In the past, on two separate and isolated occasions, I have lost a pair of glasses due to getting extremely drunk and blacking out. Losing my glasses has basically become a running joke every time I go out drinking. With almost complete certainty, on any given drinking night a friend will try to play a trick on me by taking my glasses. At this point in time, it seemed as though history had repeated itself.
At one point I began calling everyone who had gathered around my bloodied face the night before to put together the pieces of what happened last night. I called the nice EMT who noted that I wasn’t wearing my glasses when he came over to check up on me. I called more people and I seemed to be getting mostly conflicting stories. As it turned out, while investigating my face, someone had removed my glasses and put it in my shirt pocket.
My shirt pocket! My shirt in the laundry bin! Glory! Rapture! Rejoice!
I dashed to my laundry bin and fished out my glasses. At last I was complete again. However, the location of my glasses was not the only detail I learned between my many witness interrogations. I also learned that the unfortunate girl I rammed into the pillar the night before happened to have a life-long phobia of being picked up.
That made me feel like shit.
The recovery of my glasses turned out to be a Pyrrhic victory, but I refused to let myself go to such dishonor. The next day, I went out and purchased a bouquet of flowers for the damaged girl as an apology. Given my luck, I figured she would turn out to be allergic to flowers. When she finally returned to find the colorful gift left on her doorstep, I was forgiven, and all was alright with the world.
Or was it??? I asked myself as I touched my top right incisor.
(To be continued… )
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