The first weekend of my sophomore year I somehow acquired (stole or it was stolen for me) a bottle of Seagram’s Seven and decided to take it over to a friend’s dorm room and share. I’m nice and thoughtful like that.
So, I put the bottle in my backpack and headed over to the other dorm. As I walked into the building there was a DPS officer standing there. WTF? Anyway, he was waiting on the elevator so I there I was, 18 years old and a bottle of liquor in my backpack chatting with a freaking cop. He’s all like “A little Sunday night study session the first week?” And I was like “Oh yeah, I can’t afford to get behind.” while, sounding like Opie Taylor.
Anyway we didn’t waste much time getting busy drinking the 7&7 and watching a couple of movies (porn). Okay, I’m kidding about the porn. I’m pretty sure we were watching “The Lost Boys”. I don’t know why I remember that, but I do.
One of things I found out that night was that hard liquor has a much different affect on me than beer. We all learn this lesson at some point in our lives and I learned it that night. It turned out that my friend had his own bottle of Black Jack, so I only had to share a little bit of my 7&7 with a couple of people.
Long about 2 am I announced that I need to get home because I had an Emerging Nations political science class at SEVEN THIRTY IN THE MORNING! And everybody laughed. I was like “What? I’ll be there.” Again everyone laughed. So I announced that I if I wasn’t in my class at 7:30 am, I would buy (or otherwise acquire) a bottle of Seagram’s or Black Jack for each person in the room. I think there were seven of us in the room at the time.
Now I’m pretty sure that according the law degree that I don’t have, agreements entered into while one or both parties are slobbering drunk aren’t valid. Besides, it was unlikely that more than one or two people would remember that promise anyway. But, being the honorable guy that I am I decided I would go anyway.
I chose to have only some toast and orange juice for breakfast and headed down the hill to Carnall Hall for my class. Carnall is now a hotel, but at the time was a pretty run down building on the edge of the campus that held about a dozen classrooms.
It didn’t seem too warm while walking down there, but after I got into the room and took my seat, which was right next to the back door I realized that it was quite warm in there. I looked around and all the windows were closed. I told myself that it would fine, and to just relax.
So then our professor came in. I can’t remember this guy’s name, but he always made quite an entrance. Folks, no offense meant, but this guy was FAY-MING! He was hilarious though and was pretty fun to watch flitter around the room and lecture. I never knew whether he was going to actually lecture or break out into show tunes. And before you laugh too hard, I should say that I would probably recognize any show tune he sang.
About 15 minutes into class I was really starting to struggle. I started telling myself things like “Hey, I just promised to be here on time, I didn’t promise to stay.” Then I suddenly realized that I was sweating so much that my shirt was getting wet.
Then it happened.
As carefully and quietly, yet as quickly as I could I got up and made a dash for the bathroom. Let’s just say that the orange juice was a bad idea. Luckily though I made it to the restroom in time and didn’t puke in the hall or anything like that.
I stayed in there for several minutes to make sure I wasn’t going to puke again and then washed my face and got a drink of water. Then I gave myself yet another couple of minutes and went back to class and tried to sneak back to my seat.
Just after I sat down the professor kind of smiled and said “Water. Drinking lots of water is the key to recovery.”
I didn’t want to look at anyone else in the class at all. But, I stayed for the rest of the class and when it was over, as I was leaving the room some girl gave me a pat on the butt and said “way to hang in there dude.”
And, another guy, who I kind of knew came up to me and said “I’ll give you a ride back to your dorm if you want. I don’t think you’ll make it up the hill.”
Then ... when we got into his car he turned to me and said “How much was the bet?”
That’s when I realized that there was no reason to be embarrassed at all. Everyone in that classroom had either been there, or knew that at some point they would have the same experience.
The way I looked at was that this is pretty much what college exists for. To prepare us for these types of situations that we might find ourselves in at some point in the future. And to remember that we should confine the hard liquor to Friday and Saturday nights.
A good lesson learned.
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