Monday, February 3, 2014

Permanently Hungover


I’m a nice person. I really am. Not necessarily a good person… but still a nice person. Yes, I am easily annoyed. And yes, I hate talking to people when I don’t want to be. But I don’t think that makes me a bad person. But I just went out to lunch.  As the hostess showed me to my table, she smiled and tried to make small talk. Because of this niceness, I conversed with her and forced myself to smile back. Sometimes one is just not in the mood to chat about nothing. Then the same thing happened with the waitress. Answering the same dumb questions over and over when all I want to do is to be left alone. But clearly now I sound like a bad person again. I’m not allowed to say that I don’t want to talk to random people and pretend to be in a good mood all the time. That’s not socially acceptable. Even though I'm pretty sure everyone secretly agrees with me.

But the other night I did something pretty rare. I went out. I’m not a big drinker, I don’t go out very often and when I do I usually leave decently early. I’m what people call “boring” or “a loser”. And those things are just to my face. I’m don’t even know what they say behind my back. But the other night I did it. It started with a glass of wine, or two. Then we ran out of that so we moved on to whiskey. We had nothing other than seltzer water so I tried it. I loved it. Once we got to the bar, I ordered my new favorite drink: whiskey soda. I sipped on this for a while. I think I had more than one. It’s really hard to remember now. On our way out, we decided that tequila shots were a good idea. Note to self: tequila shots are never a good idea on the way out.

Walking back to my friend’s apartment, we passed a cool speakeasy type bar that none of us had been to yet. Someone decided it was a good idea to go in for a drink. Probably the same person who suggested the tequila shots. I ordered a tequila drink. I chugged down this sugary margarita concoction…

Cut to: the next morning. Two advil and three bottles of water later, my head was still pounding, it hurt to move and all I wanted was fries. I basically wanted to die. But fries seemed more important than dying so I forced myself up and met my friend out for breakfast. She was in just as bad shape as I was. We looked like shit.

We chugged coffee and water and I ordered a hamburger and fries (at 9am). Did I mention this was a weekday? People from the wait staff were coming over to me to compliment “my style”. Nobody tried to talk to us for too long because it was very obvious how hung over and miserable we were.  When you’re hung over, you might as well have a giant sign around your neck that says ‘leave me the fuck alone’. Thankfully, everyone has been in this position before so you don’t need one. It’s universally understood.

Despite our awful appearance, disheveled hair thrown on top of our heads, sunglasses hiding our puffy makeup-less faces and baggy sweatpants from head to toe, the fact that we were in the worst mood possible, wanting nothing to do with anybody, and that we were stuffing our faces like animals… we somehow still seemed cool.

If I was completely sober this morning, after a great night’s rest, I could not get away with stuffing my face like an obese woman, wearing sunglasses inside and wanting to be left alone. I mean I could still do it but I’d be a bad person. I realized that being hung over is the only socially acceptable excuse to act like a bitch and get away with it.

So from now on, consider me permanently hungover.