On Why Not to Get Too Drunk - Page 5

I was in the all-B.net-games clan BNU on USEast since February of 2004. One of the leaders, BNU-Camel, was having his 21st birthday in Boston in August (2007). I was 17 and bored, with a spare 100 bucks that I just made at work that week. I tell my parents I am visiting an old friend and take a bus from my suburban town of East Brunswick, New Jersey to big bad Boston. I arrive in Boston and I have 1 hour to find the right train station. I get through all the travel, blah blah, arrive at the bar/club we were supposed to go to. The bouncer at the door tells me I have to be 18 to enter past 8 pm. It's 7:55 and my friend hasn't shown up yet, and neither have any of his friends. 8:05, he arrives with a few friends. I come to the sad realization that I am 17, whereas they are 21, 20, 22, 25, 27, and 23. I feel alone and out of place. The situation worsens as we cannot enter because of my age. I feel like a little bitch.

The group happens to be awesome and very understanding, and we go to a different bar. When we get to that bar, I realized that the date format on the Russian passport I have with me (my only valid form of ID now that my driver's license has been voided, that's a different story) is in the form of day/month/year, and not month/day/year like is standard in America. What does this mean? It means I was born on Feb. 11, 1989 and was 18 and a half, and not 17, or at least that is what the bouncer thought. I enter with a smile on my face. This night was going to turn out swell, I thought to myself.

We sit at the bar and first thing we do is order a monster of a drink for the birthday boy. It's a bowl-shaped glass, with about 1 liter of tropical juices and strong liquor mixed in it. The bar tender is fucking insanely hot, and she is one of those girls that knows she is hot, so she has her cleavage exposed in her skimpy sweatshirt and her tight pants very low, exposing her mid-section. Whenever she moved by us, all of us stared at her with what were probably the customary "I want you," looks on our faces. She asks us all for IDs. Me and the 20 year old are the only ones that say we aren't drinking. Once again this night has turned to shit for me, I am depressed and silent amongst the mirth of our growing group of friends.

Camel is getting more and more drunk off the monster drink. He offers me some, I take it without hesitation. In retrospect, I don't see how no one cared, unless they were really chill, because I stood our like a sore thumb. I was in khaki shorts and a striped polo, with freshly cut hair, looking like an angel off of a DaVinci painting with my baby face, slurping violently at this tropical jungle of a drink. In my fervor I drink too much and start feeling buzzed. This night will be fucking awesome.

We move from the bar to the bowling alley. A different waitress comes up and asks us what we want. I feel bold because of my buzz and order a Stella Artois. I am almost shocked when she asks me for my ID. I tell her I showed it at the front and left it in my bag (wtf? guys do NOT carry bags) at the front. She bought it and brought me my beer. I give a slight "WOO!" like Maxi in Soul Calibur 2 when he does a backflip. I will say it again, this night will be fucking awesome.

First game, there are 5 of us playing in this lane. Camel, His roommate, random friend, roommate's sister, and I. At first I suck miserably, but as everyone gets more drunk I start to win. I win with a 130 over Camel's 128. He says that everyone has to buy the winner a drink because I am a little bitch for being sober. I agree whole-heartedly. In come the drinks - a Jaeger bomb, 2 beers, a long beach or a long island, some shit like that (cranberry shit and vodka I think), and a Grateful Dead. Everyone is playing the "How fast can the 17 year old get drunk?" game. I take the Jaeger bomb like it was water from a mountain spring. The first beer goes down like hot coacoa on a cold winter day. As I am starting my third beer, we start the lanes up again. This is going to be fun, I thought to myself.

I walk up to the lane holding the ball. I figure, hey, they expect me to do drunk shit, right? Why not do something stupid? So I run up to the lane and do a half-turn and throw the ball under my legs
that shit comets down the lane and I get a solid 8 pins. I feel like a king. I return to the table amidst cheers, pick up the rest of my beer and down it. My stomach disagrees with the forced entry of this liquor. I order nachos to soak it up a little, because I have the cocktails to conquer and I was hungry as balls, having not eaten for 8 or so hours of travel. I throw the ball again in the same fashion, and only get 1 pin. I am not saddened. The nachos come - they are the most delicious and welcome things in the world. I would have turned down sex for those nachos at that moment. I walk up to the lane for my turn. I look at the scores - 9/0/0/2/0. I laugh to myself - everyone is piss drunk except me. I roll the ball, and to my surprise I only get 3 pins in the two throws I made. I decided it was a fluke.

I go back to my seat and start drinking the long beach. It's a girly drink. I express my distate for it, and tell no one in particular that this drink is weak as balls. I decide I must finish it before my next turn. I quickly realize that because the drink had been standing there for a while, the alcohol seemed to get stronger as I went further. I decided that it was my buzz fooling me. As I get to the last 1/5th of the drink, I feel a little gag reflex kick in. I stuff my face full of nachos and try to order a loaf of bread. The waitress tells me there is no bread. "How the hell do you not have bread in a bowling alley/bar? What is this?" I said. Somehow I was making sense to myself. The waitress laughs and leaves. I decide she is no longer my friend.

I line up to roll the ball. This time I opt for the old favorite - the granny roll. This maneuver gets me a gutter ball in less than 1 second of rolling, 5 feet down the lane. I am amused at how much that sucked. I blame the granny roll. As I walk up to get my ball, I look at the scores - 12/21/24/30/20.
(Note: scores after this are estimates and vague memories, except my own) I am dumbfounded. I wonder how everyone managed to get so many points so fast while I only rolled the ball like 5 times. I realized that I had probably blacked out for a minute when it was my turn and they skipped me. I decided that I was not that drunk yet, and it wasn't my fault. I decide it was time to make up for my losing by doing something crazy. I put the ball on the lane, walk backwards, and do a soccer slide-tackle into the ball. My foot hurts a bitchload but the ball rolls down the lane. I only get 1 pin, but the cheers make up for it. As I limp back to my long beach, I realize that I am at least a little drunk at this point. I take this as a cue to test my Russian blood for how much alcohol it can take until it stops carrying oxygen, or some other biological process like that. I suddenly realize my thoughts aren't really clear, and that time flies really fast when I try to make coherent thoughts, as it is already my turn and I have not even taken a sip since I last went up. I am furious. I walk up to the lane and roll the ball in a standard manner twice. Somehow I get 2 gutterballs. I become a belligerant drunk. The next person to go is the roommate's sister - I am upset because I wanted to punch someone, decided her ovaries are a target of poor moral fiber, so I went on to calm down and brood for a bit while I drink.

The rest of the long beach was like the fountain of youth. I got my fighting spirit. I felt like Rocky in Rocky II, getting up before the buzzer. I look at the grateful dead in front of me - it intimidates me none, although it is black in color and I have no idea what the fuck is inside of it. (Note: here is the recipe, and read the fucking testimonials: http://www.drinksmixer.com/drink307.html ). This drink tastes vile at first, but the more I drink the better it tastes. I feel this is a deadly combination, because the initial distaste infers that it is too strong for me to be drinking it after all I have already consumed. I think about ordering bread, but I get a hazy memory of sometime long ago where it didn't work, so I decided to not even try. I drink in solitude. The guy that ordered me this drink (random friend) turns around and asks me how it is. I respond with something like "Tis good my concerned chap" but he laughs too hard for such a shitty phrase, so I figure either he is shitfaced or I slurr like a bitch. Actions start happening in the past, decisions I make seem to be carried out only 5 seconds later. This is not a good combination with bowling.

I see my name on the screen, and I think that it's funny that the computer knows my name and that it's my turn. I start trying to explain the wonders of technology - to Camel and his friends, a few of which were programming majors in college. They all promptly tell me to shut the fuck up and throw the ball. I am offended and I walk up towards the lane. Here is where the whole decision/action delay kicks in big time. I grab the ball, and throw my arm back, envisioning me letting go and getting a strike somewhere in a second. Next thing I know I throw my empty hand forward with all the force I can muster and trip over myself, landing on the lane. The ball had flown back a few feet and rolled to the bar. I see this and think it is the fucking King Kong Godzilla hybrid of tragedies, and that someone will die and I will go to jail. I run after the ball, falling repeatedly. I finally get it, and as I return I see the scores again - me with 23, everyone else with 70-100. I am on the verge of tears - how far has the champion of the previous game fallen?! I felt like Savior must feel when he loses on Battle.net, we all know he does nowadays when he tries to noobstomp to boost morale. Kidding. Except not really.

As I return, people are laughing at me. At first I feel like it's funny, then it becomes depressing. I feel like a reject again. Then someone asks that question, "Who's driving?!" I feel my chance for redemption slipping away - I envision my mom's comfortable BMW 5 series, me confident at the wheel, everyone else in awe of my amazing driving prowess. I yell "MEEEEE!" Apparently everyone is too drunk to see how this is a bad idea.

After I finish that Grateful Dead, try to drink another but gag after 1/2 of it and am forced to surrender it to random friend amidst boos, then order a few beers to console myself, we are leaving. We get the genius idea to get our shoes and run the fuck out. We all do it, except we realize that we left Camel at the bar, asleep. Once again I felt my chance for redemption - I opt to enter into the bar and save our friend. As I enter the bouncer asks for my ID. I tell him "I already gave it to the guy at the front door with my bag or some shit." This does not fly with him, as he is the guy at the front and I haven't shown him anything. After a minor hassle involving 2 other bouncers, I am politely escorted to the front door with my arms behind my back. Luckily they do not notice the bowling shoes on my feet. We camp out in the cold waiting for the birthday boy. 5 minutes later he runs out full speed with his shoes on his hands and his bowling shoes on his feet, him running like a Mexican fresh over the border. Instead of trying to act cool, all of us run after him, in the opposite direction of the car.

Long story short, it takes us 1 hour to navigate back to the car which were parked accross the street from the bar. I think to myself "Thank god, I just want to pass out and not die." Then I am reminded that I have to drive, and that everyone else is too shitfaced because they thought I was a designated driver. What they fail to realize is I have no valid license, I am 17, I am terribly drunk. What I failed to realize is that it is not my BMW 5 series - it is a 1990, stick-shift, Saab hatchback. I fall into despair. I text message people asking for help - the response I get from a high girl I had casual sex with is "if u can walk to the car, u can drive it." I see the wisdom in this and get in.

The next 2 hours were filled with abrupt stops (I have terrible vision), many scary encounters with other cars and what looked like cops at 2 am, we approach New Hampshire where all my friends live. At this point I am falling asleep at the wheel. Camel has woken up from his drunken stupor, took the shoes off his hands, and felt the need to drive. No one really tried to stop him - this is where the fun began again. He drove the roommate's sister to her house, and all of them were egging me on to ask her for her number or some shit (she is 25) to fully humiliate myself, but I resist and feel like a hero that has come out of a war of peer pressure after she leaves. Camel keeps driving and pulls the sharpest turn I have ever been in a car for - in fact I thought we were going to need a rollcage, or die. A cop sees this and promptly pulls him over. I survey the situation in the car - it does not look favorable for us. I am in the back, and I have just realized that one of the guys is sleeping on my lap. I try to wake him but the most I can do is lean him against the window. I look at myself in the semi-reflective window - I see dirt of some sort on all my clothes, and my face is caked with nacho cheese around my chin. I feel ashamed. At this point the cop comes over and tells us we were making that turn around 20 miles too fast. My friend pulls some sober miracle act out of his ass, saying that he is sober and was just trying to get home fast. The cop lets us go. We drive to the random guy's house and smoke weed. I am very happy again.

We get back into the cars, and I realize I have lost everything - EVERYTHING. My bookbag (travelling shit), my wallet, my cell phone. I freak out. It turns out the sister had it all. Once again everyone mocks me and tells me that I have to drive back to her house and go up to her room and seduce her, then take my stuff. I drive back with Camel and get the stuff without anything going wrong, except a long awkward silence when she opened the door and I just had one of those "uhhhh..." looks on my faces as you try to recall why the fuck you went somewhere when you are high/drunk.

After that point, it becomes a little blurry. I remember driving the roommate's mustang way too fast, trying to get directions for New Jersey at a gas station, and then somehow ending up at Camel's house. He brings out weed and Soul Calibur 3. I am overjoyed. We smoke up hardcore, get into one of those "I CAN'T EVEN MOVE MY FINGERS MAN" highs where everything seems to be covered in some sort of mud or glue or some shit. Then the bombshell hits - the roommate brings out 2CI and Katamari Domacy. The rest of the night is one scary trip after another, which included evil ferrets that kept trying to eat me as I was stuck in my stoner glue, then when everything that touched me felt like a knife and I thought I was a 12 year old white girl in the ghetto, about to get stabbed and gangbanged by niggers, when around me there was only a blanket. Katamari Domacy - that game freaked the fuck out of me, I kept thinking how morally wrong it was for a ball to just go around and conquer cities and destroy civilization like that. Somewhere after that, I smoke weed to "calm myself" and I just pass out at the break of dawn.

My bus is at noon. That was shitty planning right there. I get a call at 11 am - it's from my mom - my great grandma died and I was going to the funeral in 2 days to Russia. I just mumbled something and passed out again. I woke up at 11:30 again because I was smart enough to set an alarm. I almost miss my bus. I get on it and pass out for the next 6 hours. Great evening.