Do you ever NOT feel stupid when you get hungover? What about when you’re supposed to be beyond your crazy college day benders? When you work a 9 to 5 and then get messy drunk on Saturday night, keeping you bedridden and puking all night and Sunday?
Saturday night was not nice to me. I went out with my new coworkers to get to know them outside of the press room. This involved convening at one person’s house and drinking games. I didn’t THINK I drank more than “usual” although the standard for usual was last set when I was out at Ottawa bars near every weekend getting silly.
In retrospect, I pinpoint the beginning of the downfall with our drinking snacks. The guy’s whose house we were a is some kind of Iron Chef or something and he made up these appetizers that were ground beef and corn atop baguettes, with a fried quail egg on top. This is probably something really sophisticated, but all pretense was lost on us as we chased our quail egg delights with rye and beer and wine.
You know what, I should have realized then how the night would end.
We went to one of Whitehorse’s only decent bars (decent standards as set by another twentysomething) called Coaster’s, where shots were slammed, drinks were sloppily cheered and the music, I’ll admit, wasn’t half bad. I didn’t really know the people I was with, but if frosh week taught me anything, it is that you can make fast friends by sharing a night of boozing. I was nervous, granted, so maybe that sped up the pace at which I imbibed.
2:00 rolls around, as did my vision, with the “whirlies” kicking in. I got home and clump-clumped my way through the dark into our room. Memory fades to black.
Wake up the next morning feeling OK at first, surprised actually, although confused by the pasta pot lined with a plastic bag beside my head.
I got up, made myself a Gatorade cocktail to ease the dehydration, and resigned myself clad in bathrobe to watching 90210 reruns on TV. It hits me.
I am puking up Gatorade and what water I ingest all Sunday long. I felt worse than I have ever felt post-drinking. Was it the quail? The purple shots?
Fiancé filled in the blanks and informed me that between the hours of 2 and 4 a.m. I had been wrapped around the toilet, puking my guts out, ignoring his pleas for me to drink more water, eat some bread. He was so nice to take care of me those 2 hours before he had to get up and work 12 hours.
I am now back to normal, although my skin is a whole new kind of dry and pasty, and the headache lingers as my body restores its water contents. (Ode to the red Nalgene on my desk)
It turns out, upon reconvening in the office Monday morning, that near everyone got disgustingly sick with quail and booze toxicity, so I don’t feel quite so stupid. Misery loves company, and I guess so does shame, haha.

Labels: booze, Whitehorse