Why "Make Your Own Shot Night" Shouldn't Come Before "Graduation Dinner Afternoon."

Earlier in May this year, I walked at my graduation commencement ceremonies (graduation still pending...) at my university. A few days later on a Friday my parents thought it would be great to go out for a special "Happy Graduation!" luncheon with them and my brother and his wife that drove from out of state to see me. I was on board with the idea so the Thursday night before my friend calls me over and asks if I want to "help" her clean out her liquor cabinet before she moved to Colorado. I know this is already a bad idea but I figure since it's 9PM and the lunch is at 12PM the next day then my 2PM work shift, I can pace myself and get plenty of sleep.

It turned into "Make Your Own Shot" night with a rack full of spirits and cordials.

 Normally I'm not one for anything very sweet when it comes to alcohol but they just went down so easy... next thing you know we're stumbling drunk and realize it's definitely time for bed. I stumble into her bed and pass out.

Then my alarm goes off at 10AM. I'm confused, in pain, and uncomfortable.

After taking a minute to remember where I am, I notice at some point in the middle of the night I took my shorts off (probably because of the early summer heat) and decided instead of putting them somewhere not on the bed, I slept right on top of them the whole night. My friend was still dozing so I decided just to sneak out quietly and let her sleep.

I'm stumbling around her apartment, trying to navigate as quietly as I could without my contacts in. I'm blind as a bat and hungover so I can imagine I wasn't the most graceful person in the world. Luckily no one woke up. Even though when I went to go get a drink of water in the kitchen...

 Faintly remembering I was 98% positive I didn't throw up, like a pro I just stuck my foot blindly into the kitchen to rinse it off, squirted a bit of dishsoap on it, wiped off, then grabbed the rest of my things and headed out the door.

I had about an hour to drive back home, get showered and presentable to meet my family for lunch and then go to work. I felt like even through my sunglasses, the suns horrible rays still pierced through to my horribly bloodshot eyes. Luckily I made it back the 3 miles back to my apartment and I slowly showered in a hungover stupor as I tried to wrap my mind around the idea of actually ingesting food.

 Hoping it would pass, sipping water as I got dressed, I left and drove to meet my family. About a mile away I realized that no food would be coming in my body sooner than something that would be exiting my body. Any moment.

I pulled over and parked in a small neighborhood several blocks away since the restaurant was right across from my work and employees can't park in the parking lot on weekends. I stopped the car and sat. A million thoughts came into my head at once.

"How am I going to keep a conversation going?"

"How am I going to be able to eat food? It's a lunch and I can't NOT eat food. They'll be worried."

"Will I die during the hot walk over the bridge?"

"What if I throw up right there in the restaurant? How do I play that off?"

"I need to throw up. That's how I'll solve my problems."

I figured like most of my problems, it can be solved with vomiting. I feel like after I throw up from drinking too much, I usually feel time times better. Realizing I'm in a residential neighborhood, I can't lean out my car and throw up, or knock on someone's door and ask to hurl in their bathroom. I grab an empty paper bag from my back seat and try. And try and try and try.

 After several minutes of nothing but a lot of dry heaving and drooling, I realized it wasn't going to happen so I better suck it up, meet my family for lunch and play it cool.

The five-block walk was horrible.

Before turning the corner to the restaurant, I checked my appearance in a store window and saw that I looked like a very distressed, pale, train wreck of a girl with eyeliner running from attempting to vomit. Nonetheless I put a smile on my face and was genuinely happy to see my family. Once we stepped inside the restaurant the first thing that struck me was the smell of food.

If you have ever been incredibly hungover before, you know that the smell of food, a smell that people like most of the time, just smells like eventual throwing up.
**Note: I apologize already for the excessive use of "vomit, throw-up, etc." but it's a key part of the story. Hopefully no more vommy stories for awhile. I think.

As we sat down to our table, the pain in my stomach kept growing and the noises were something similar to that of an angry tar pit. I tried to chat with my family as much as possible with a friendly smile, but I'm sure they were wondering why I was going through five glasses of water every 10 minutes and why my speech turned into that of a high school burnout. I couldn't make competent sentences because I was trying so hard to control my stomach muscles to not turn on me.

Ordering food was one of the worst experiences of my life. Nothing on the menu looked appetizing at all.

 I settled for a vegan sloppy joe type sandwich because I wanted to:
A) Show my parents I was hungry for a meal and not water and crackers.
B) Stay away from anything meat or cheese-gravy like as possible.

Hoping that it would be the only obstacle I had to overcome during lunch, I was wrong. They ordered appetizers. They generously pushed my would-be-favorites of spring rolls and sweet potato fries my way. I couldn't refuse, but I'm telling you now, that was one of the worst eating experiences in my life. You know that feeling...

 

After excusing myself a number of times to the restroom feeling like I was going to throw up after bit chewing and swallowing, ("I had a lot of coffee, guys. Got a small bladder!") I was so relieved when that dining experience was over, (I ate two sweet potato fries, a nibble of a spring roll, and the top bun of my burger.) but then I forgot I had a 8 1/2 hour shift at work.

Ugh.