drinking through a straw = not such a brilliant idea

My blog has been depressing as of late. To break the tension, I’ll share one of my most embarrassing stories.

It was during the spring of 1996, shortly after my 19th birthday. After one dreaded semester at FSU spent commuting back and forth between Tallahassee and home sweet home in a sad attempt to salvage what was left of my relationship with Andy, I had spent my Christmas break moving back into my mother’s house. I spent my time doing 1 of 4 things:

1. stalking Andy
2. crying about Andy to those lucky enough to listen
3. hanging out with Andy’s brother as a lame scheme to acquire inside information regarding Andy’s whereabouts
4. sleeping

More often than not, these four activities overlapped.

I had spent the better part of this particular afternoon crying about Andy (nothing new). Andy’s brother Matt took pity on me and convinced me to go over to his friend’s house for a “party.” The party ended up being me, Matt, two guys I had never met, and… I can’t recall. I want to say a friend of the female type was with me. Abby, perhaps? Maybe she’ll read this and verify.

I had never met the two guys before. They were sketchy characters, though. The apartment was filthy and smelled like a hamster cage. There were multiple posters of various dirt rock bands decorating the walls. I’m pretty sure the only lighting was from lava lamps. I also remember there being a lot of black and skull paraphernalia. It was slightly creepy, but the proposition of free liquor to numb my pain somehow made sitting at the table playing cards with two strangers worth it.

My first rum and coke was mostly coke with a shot or two of rum. I couldn’t stand the taste, but the idea of being drunk seemed more attractive than crying for a few more hours. I requested a straw and began guzzling at rapid speed. Each drink had less Coke and more rum. By the fifth glass, I feel certain the ratio was the same as the first glass, only reversed… mostly rum with a shot or two of Coke. Having consumed all five glasses via straw while not moving from my chair, I had no sensation of being drunk, yet an overwhelming sensation of needing to urinate.

I stood and proudly announced my next order of business, which was to empty my bladder. Standing made me suddenly aware that drinking five rum and Cokes through a straw was perhaps a regrettable decision. I spun around with the grace of a ballerina and pranced to the hall bathroom.

You need to understand something about the toilet. As you might imagine from my description of the apartment, cleanliness wasn’t exactly a priority. I’m not sure how long the two guys had resided in this place, but I feel certain the toilet had never been cleaned. Not even once. There was nothing even remotely white about the inside of the toilet bowl. It had brown and black stains throughout. The white porcelain literally wasn’t showing. I know this for a fact, as you will soon discover.

While any sane woman would obviously take great care in covering every square inch of the toilet seat with toilet paper before sitting, I was not classified as being sane at this time. I sat down and peed, contracting God-only-knows-what. About the time my bladder was empty, I suddenly realized how dizzy I felt.

With one swift motion, I yanked up my pants, twirled around, plopped onto the floor, and hugged the throne. My projectile vomiting was so intense that I had to brace myself. My hands clutched the toilet rim. Unfortunately, quite a bit of male urine made the rim slippery and my hands slid into the toilet. So there I was… my hands swirling in the filthy toilet, which was now filled with both my urine and vomit. My hair, too, was dangling into the bowl. Sexy, no?

The others must have heard the chaos and Matt came running. It’s nice to know he felt some sort of responsibility for my dire situation and held my hair back for me.

After the contents of my stomach were no longer in my stomach, I rinsed off my face and hands, thanked the two guys for their hospitality, apologized for destroying their bathroom, and we left.

Yes, I was a total idiot. I’m thankful I lived to tell about it. That was the last time I was ever drunk. And I can honestly say, it will never happen again.