The Hangover
Photo by Grenade
You know, a few years back, I used to write what I called The Hangover Update, a random posting sent to various friends that enlightened all about the current state of my brain and rectum after a night of spirits. Consequently, when the film The Hangover came out, everyone felt the need to contact me first and tell me how hilarious it is so we could compare favorite parts. Unfortunately, I’ve yet to see it. Everyone repeatedly seems disappointed. I’m not sure why.
It’s not that I doubt its inevitable hilariousness or the endless amounts of quotes I’m sure to expect, but rather, I just didn’t have the same initial level of excitement. See, movies are supposed to have a certain level of escapism. Which is why I like James Bond movies. That is some over the top stuff I can’t even dream of living. For most people, this is true. With The Hangover, for me, not so much. I’ll get around to seeing it, but man, I’ve lived it. Ya’ll act like I’ve never woke up in a room at a place I don’t really know wondering who the guy passed out on the couch with the funions is. One time I even woke up naked on the floor hugging a box of Cheez-itz. Hell, I’ve woken up next to people I don’t really even remember meeting, never mind the time I had to jump from a second floor bathroom window to avoid a nutcase with a machete sized kitchen knife.
Unfortunately, today is one of the worst hangovers of my life. The sad part is that its 7:00PM on Monday. I gotta be honest, the events of the last four days are somewhat hazy. I do remember taking two days off to head down to Cape Cod for some last minute boozing. Like any good hangover, it started innocently enough with me playing a game of home run derby while drinking. Now, some people mean that they drink and do things by meaning they drink between plays, etc. Not yours truly, who managed to not make a single catch in the outfield by refusing to put my beer down.
Flash forward many drunken hours later and halfway through my cigar I’m realizing that not only did I smoke my cigar backwards, but I have this massive burning pain in my right arm that travels down my right side. Eventually, I realize that I did not in fact light myself on fire as I initially thought and decide that I must be having some sort of mild heart attack. I use this diagnosis to convince some girl I barely know to let me lie down in her room. When she informs me that I can, but she’ll be kicking me out of the bed when she returns due to its small size, I promptly decide to go to bed on her floor, by sticking my head half under the mattress and the rest of my body resembling Stephen Hawking’s natural body posture. I can’t believe no one even took a picture.
Somehow at 7AM I decided it was best to wake up and get myself some coffee and the houseful of people who took me in some donuts. I think I was the most popular random drunk guy to still be at a party the next day. Rather than go home after, I decide the best idea is to start drinking, hit the beach, and enjoy the Atlantic Ocean. I’ll sum up that day with a valuable lesson; buoys marking ocean travel lanes were not meant to be swam to, no matter how good of an idea it seemed at the time.
Realizing that all my clothes are now wet, I search my car for the only attire I have available, dirty jeans, a hideous Hawaiian shirt lying in my back seat, and a Whalers hoodie. Realizing that a hoodie in 80 degrees is just too awkward looking while rocking a Hawaiian shirt, I decide to ditch that. Somehow sticking with the party, we venture to the downtown bars. As the night before slowly catches up to the rest of the party, they make an early exit.
Unfortunately for my liver, my addictive personality just won’t let me quit. So me and the one friend willing to stay out, but not still drink, call in reinforcements. At this moment, I’ll think this is a great idea. Two hours later, I’m at a seafood restaurant/karaoke bar, being dragged across the dance floor collar first by two clenched fists containing the retard strength of ten men connected to a “Sabretooth” (think cougar, but older, uglier, snaggletoothed, and way more likely to bring you to an end). Taking this as a bad omen, I quickly bail as soon as a female distracts her.
One would think this would be enough drunken shenanigans and bad omens for one weekend. Most people would have called it a weekend. But I wasn’t about to go out like that. 8AM rolled around and I promptly drive my useless ass back from Cape Cod, stopping only for breakfast and more booze. At 2PM, I hit a cookout, figuring the best way to quench my thirst and wipe out the headache is to sit in the sun and start downing LandShark. Somewhere along the line, I’m drinking tequila and some sort of sweet rum out a 24oz can of Monster. At daylight, I’m still awake and in the garage with of my friends. After we ran out of booze and decided we had too much tequila, we very wisely decide to head back to her place, both nervously swerving to the side of the road as the State Trooper passes us.
By the time I come to and start heading home, my head kills, my vision is blurry, and my breath is even bothering me. Realizing this is gonna get rough, I stop at the ghetto mini-mall down the street, grab a sub, an energy drink, and more booze. Despite the beautiful weather, I wind up watching Die Hard in a basement dreading the next day at work.
When I wake up today, I’m disgusted by the stench of vomit. After realizing that I didn’t actually puke, my conclusion is that my room and clothes smell of such a strong mixture of liquors that I’ve started to associate it with vomit. I do my best to look somewhat sober and fall into my car late. At this point, I realize that I left my clothes from the ocean in the trunk of my car and the smell of wet, saltwater soaked clothes in 80 degree plus sunlight has filled my car. By the time I get to work, no matter how much cologne I spray on me, I can’t shake the feeling I stroll through the front door smelling like Courtney Love’s vagina.
As the day goes by, things don’t appear much better. By 11AM I’m getting odd stares as I double-fist a large, black ice coffee and a red bull. I figure it’s the best way to keep me from passing out and whacking my head off my desk. Lunch doesn’t help. The combination in my stomach of leftover booze, energy drinks, and coffee doesn’t help hold the chicken sandwich. I feel like I have two midget sumo wrestlers in my stomach and I suddenly have no body heat as I break out into a cold sweat. Running to the stairwell to head to the bathroom, I let out a fart so painful and with so much force it feels like a prison assault. It echoes up the stairwell.
As I sit on the bowl with my head in my hands, pure concentrated evil the likes of which have only been chronicled in Ghostbusters 2 comes out of my rectum. It takes five minutes of reading hockey news printouts before I feel well enough to stand up. I check to make sure that Vigo is not in fact in the toilet and stroll out of the bathroom leaving that place smelling like pre-sewage system London. It takes two more hours of cold sweat and no body heat trying to hide the fact that I’m playing sporcle and not answering my phone before I finally come to the conclusion that I’m doing no one any good, shut my computer off, and leave my cubicle.
The fact that its 80 degrees out does nothing to warm my car. The stench of the sea does nothing to help my stomach on the ride home. Sitting outside in the sun all day did not exactly did not help. I struggle to hold back the vomit reassured by the fact that there can’t possibly be anything left in my stomach after the nexus of evil I left in the toilet.
I head home, stop in a store, buy Stepbrothers on DVD without looking at the price, convinced it’s of the same quality as Godfather Part II. I grab a pepperoni pizza, and spend the next four hours watching the movie twice and chugging Mountain Dew.
I sit here wondering: why it is, after I’ve completely lost my soul, dignity, and morality, that you guys think I’ll be impressed by a movie where they’ve lost the groom?
