Celebrating My Birth

As you can tell, the older I become, the more often my stories include alcohol. Most of the poor decisions I make come along with the use of the sauce. This is probably why I don't drink very often. I feel that I'm happy enough as it is without needing the juice which only leads to this poor decision making. That being said, I'm not completely immune to its powers. Even I need to let loose every once in a while.

One of these times involved my previous birthday. Per usual, I did not plan it ahead of time. For starters, I am not one to plan my own party and invite people to it. That simply seems tacky to me, so if someone brings up going out then I'll see if some others would like to join. I believe this happened a day or so prior to this monumental evening, therefore nobody had advanced notice. As it turns out that doesn't allow many people to make it. Apparently other people actually make plans ahead of time. This seems like quite the silly notion to me, but I like to live by the seat of my pants. This night of going out would consist of I believe a group of 6 people.

I have a tradition with a good friend of mine, Donnell, that requires taking a shot of Bacardi 151 each time we meet up outside work. This tradition has continued to this day as it was once more celebrated just a few weeks ago. The reason I bring this up is because it usually stops at only one shot of 151. However, this evening it would not stop at 1, nor would it stop at 5. I believe the count we gathered after the fact put it at 6 or 7 shots of 151 to go along with the other drinks I had consumed that evening. Although I typically have a fairly high tolerance for alcohol, this proved to simply be too much. The rest of the story is based off stories I have heard from other attendees of the gathering.

After a certain point of the night I have no recollection of what occurred. Unfortunately there is documented evidence in the form of photographs however. Although I behaved fairly decently at the bars it was the drive home that finished me. I was in the back seat of a friend's car as she drove me back to my place. There were 3 of us in the car, and there was much discussion to be had. At one point she says she asked me, "Are you alright Chris?" She received no response, but slowly heard the window roll down. This could not be a good sign at all. As we drove down the highway I proceeded to attempt to vomit out of the window of the car. Needless to say, much of it did not make it very far. My shirt outer shirt was completely covered in vomit as was the side of her car and the interior. The car was pulled to the side of the road and I finished what needed to be done.

As we pulled back in to my apartment complex I was at least remorseful enough to offer to get paper towels from the apartment and clean everything up. I'm not sure that would have helped much, but it's the though that counts I suppose. Even in a drunken stupor, I am a proud individual and I hate to act like an embarrassment. I wanted to fix the problem however I could. She insisted it was OK, and that I should head up to apartment and pass out. I went upstairs to attempt to complete that task.

The next afternoon (yes, the afternoon) I awoke to a horrendous scene. I was pantsless lying face down on my bathroom floor. My t-shirt was covered in vomit and the bathroom was destroyed. As I stumbled out the bathroom I noticed that there was a very visible blood stain on my doorway that had not previously been there. I can't even begin to imagine how that occurred, and still don't know to this day. I may have murdered somebody as far as I am aware. If that is the case, I did a damn good job of hiding the body given my condition. I did see that I somehow managed to throw my pants and overshirt in the washer, so I still had some sense about me that evening.

It goes without saying that the next day was not a pleasant day for me. I had even lost my phone which luckily turned out to be in her car. Therefore nobody could contact me. I was unable to move from my couch the entire day. When I arrived at work that Monday I was shown the evidence from that evening. There were photographs taken after my unsuccessful attempt to heave out of the car window. I still cannot explain why I had a gigantic smile on my face and was flashing two thumbs up while being completely covered in my own filth. Thus concludes another sordid tale of drinking gone awry...