I Wonder What I Don't Rememer? Thanks, Alcohol!

I’ve been mulling over this wonder all week. I am having a really hard time! Oh no, not because my drunken escapades have been so few and far between, but because there have been so many and they usually ended with my inability to remember significant portions of the evening. Don’t worry about me, though: I’m down to one binge a year now that I’m wise and mature and oh, who am I kidding? Two a year. Three last year and before that … um …er …ahem! but definitely no blackouts in 2008.

Yet.

So what’s the most drunk I’ve ever been? Could it have been, say, the first time I imbibed? It was second semester of my freshman year, just after joining my sorority, on a Saturday night, with plenty of fun girly company. I had a cute “drinking cup.” What was at the time a very cute outfit (standard HC going-out uniform: form-fitting t-shirt tucked into bootcut jeans, an open flannel shirt, and boots). And a whole half a bottle of Boone’s Farm: I split the bottle w/another first-time-drinker and very, very good buddy. And a band to go dance to. There are pictures, and I look adorable and sloppily giddy. It was fantastic.

Or was it later that semester, at a fraternity formal, when I showered tipsy for the first time (I remember that being a hugely awesome experience)? Later that evening, I left my date (who really liked me) to follow his fraternity brother (who I really liked and did not like me back) as he crashed another fraternity formal on another floor of the hotel. We stayed there talking to total strangers for at least ten minutes (you know how time expands when you’re drunk) before our respective dates found us and dragged us back to the right formal. It was hilarious.

No, maybe it was my senior year, when I had a huge Halloween fight with one of my best friends. He was guy with whom I happened to believe I was in love (to him, I was the big sister he never had, of course) and for some reason I thought it was a good idea to get really belligerent and tell him maybe we shouldn’t be friends anymore—and then a better idea to throw my keys and attendant brown leather ID-holder keychain past him onto a parking lot covered with fallen leaves in a fit of drunken foot-stomping and pouting. It took us an hour to find them, and he was completely sober. It was ridiculous.

Let’s not forget the gala benefit bash from my year as company manager of a regional theatre: we did a black-tie dinner before Opening Night of a well-known contemporary play, followed by an Opening Night reception in the lobby. As CM, I got to help pour the hundreds of glasses of donated champagne for happy hour before the dinner. I continued to pour during dinner (the peons who worked for the theatre got relegated to one shared table way in the back and we took turns sitting down to grab a quick bite) and didn’t really eat much, what with all the hubbub and the gala-ing and the pouring. I found myself a little overzealous in my estimation of how many patrons wanted to drink that donated champagne, and I mean, it was free. I couldn’t let it go to waste, so I did my best to drink it. All. It was frightening.

Then there’s the time my sister Kat and brother-in-law Owl met The Boy and me at our parents’ house to celebrate Father’s Day from far-flung places. All six of us went out to the farmhouse of our closest family friends for a shindig of one sort or another. Beer, wine, liquor, and wonderful live Irish music followed. I don’t remember many of the details after about the first 90 minutes of the party, but it ended with the three couples being clown-carred into one vehicle to head home … only Kat was sober to drive. Father’s Day breakfast and church turned into Hangover Brunch at Shoney’s minus church for most of us. It was painful.

Oh, what about my best birthday? It was worth it.

Let’s put it this way: I’ve never gotten a tattoo, arrested, or married while intoxicated. So my adventures are pretty tame when you really put them into perspective.

Wouldn’t you agree?