Drink 1 - The first drink of the night, you feel the liquid relaxation seep through your body, thanking God he created something as wonderful as alcohol.
Drink 2 - One drink was so wonderful, two has to be better! You are now stress-free and in love with the world. What the hell was I so worked up about all week? My kids are great! My house is immaculate! I love my life!!! If you are with your significant other, making out usually occurs.
Drink 3 - The Decisive Drink. This is where the direction of the night is decided. Stopping at Drink 2, you can still get to bed early and feel few ill effects tomorrow morning other than an insane need for caffeine and a little facial puffiness. Move on to Drink 3, and you have started down the slippery slope that will surely result in regret and your children watching a lot of morning television.
Stand up #1 - assuming you are out, at this point in the night you will probably need to urinate, or as we called it in college"break the seal". This will also probably be the first time you've stood up since you began imbibing. Sliding off the bar stool you will be surprised that the floor that seemed quite flat when you sat down, suddenly seems quite uneven. You weave your way slowly to the facilities and return to your perch.
Drinks 4 - ? - All of these drinks are a bad idea and you know it. But you've committed yourself to a horrifying morning tomorrow, so what the hell. Several things will become excellent ideas now. Dancing is one of them. Others are stealing things from the bar, like the ladies room sign**, posting pictures on Facebook and asking strangers if you can try on their hats. You will also get off your bar stool again, as the drinks, and water you've been consuming in a vain attempt the stave off tomorrow's headache, are working their way through your system. Setting one foot on the floor you realize, "Fuck am I drunk." You will have a conversation with yourself in the bathroom mirror, about "pulling it together" as you try to focus on your own reflection, wipe off the mascara under your eyes and crookedly reapply your lipstick.
Food - Right about now, you are done drinking and you will probably want to eat. One way of procuring food is to head to another establishment, such as a diner. In the harsh flourescent lights, you will order something you will most likely be seeing in a porcelain vessel at some point in the near future, and french fires are always involved (cheese and gravy optional).*** Your chances of paying the bill correctly are slim, especially if the tab has to be divided among a group. Everyone just throw a twenty on the table and be done with it. You owe the waitress a big tip for cleaning up the water and ketchup you inevitably spilled anyway.
Eating at home is another choice. It is always the wrong choice, unless you own and can operate a deep fryer (see above). You will fruitlessly tear through your cabinets looking for something that resembles the food you wish you were ordering right now. You will end up dipping stale tortilla chips in a food service tub of sour cream, covering your arm up to your elbow.****
Retiring for the night - When you are wrapping up the nights adventures there are several things you can do to make tomorrow morning less hellish. Drinking some (more) water and taking some Tylenol might help with tomorrow's skull-crushing headache. Brushing your teeth is advisable because minty cotton mouth is always better than beer-flavored. If you are a contact lens-wearer, be sure to take out both contacts. Vertigo caused by one seeing and one non-seeing eye upon waking will only expedite tomorrow's vomiting. Ladies, be sure to remove all of your makeup. Forcing your loved ones to see what the love child of Carrot Top and Alice Cooper would look like is cruel and unusual punishment.
Be sure to take off your clothes and put on pajamas. If you are a nude sleeper, than Godspeed, but waking up with one arm out of your top, in your underpants, might be hard to explain to your kids.
Now close your eyes, feel the bed spin, as your night comes to an end. Tomorrow you will find someone's cell phone in your purse and wonder how you got that bruise. You will promise God you will never drink like this again.
And both of you will know you are lying.
*Based on actual events.
**Not that my sister ever tried to do that.
***In Jersey, these are known as "disco fries". I find the sludge-like gravy to be repulsive, and too reminiscent of what all this alcohol will force my intestines to produce the next day.
****Not that I ever did that in college.
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