The night this story takes place, I happened to be hanging out with a guy I will call Marshall Eriksen, taken from the show How I Met Your Mother. He was watching a show about Starcraft, a computer game I don't play or understand, nor do I have any desire to learn. I didn't understand a word of what the host was saying, but I was bored out of my mind and had nothing better to do. I decided to keep watching in hope that the man on the television, Day 9, would start speaking English sometime soon. The show we were watching was called Fun Day Monday. That's about all I understood or remembered.
About half way through the show, probably sick and tired of my endless questions, Marshall mentioned that there was a drinking game that went along with the show. He had wanted to play for ages, but he didn't know anyone who drank and he didn't have any alcohol. Excited to potentially have my first college drinking experience, but also anxious to get my hands on anything that would make this show more bearable, I scurried off to my room to retrieve the half a bottle of Cuervo Gold I had smuggled into my room.
Here's a pro tip for you all: don't play drinking games with hard liquor when you're supposed to be using beer. It ends badly.
It should have been a sign something was wrong when we were required to take drinks in such a rapid succession that we could barely pass the bottle between us before we were supposed to do another shot. The bottle disappeared alarmingly fast. So fast, in fact, that we ran out of alcohol before either of us felt buzzed. So fast that it didn't hit us until the show was over and we were in our dining hall ordering burgers.
I distinctly remember ordering my food and sitting down with it. However, I can't tell you what happened to the food. I had the burger in my hands, I looked up to talk to Marshall, I looked back down and it was gone. That span of time has vanished from my memory. I knew I was in trouble around that point. The trip back to the dorm was a wobbly one and spawned one of my most memorable drunken quotes. As I stumbled along, I was spilling my root beer out of its paper cup and all over the sidewalk.
"Careful," Marshall warned me. "You're going to get root beer all over yourself"
"No, no, it's okay" I assured him. "I'm like a ninja - I can see the drink as it falls and dodge it"
I know, I know...You don't need to tell me how stupid I sounded. I've spent ages trying to live this one down.
It had been ages since Marshall had a drinking buddy, apparently, and he was so excited that he invited his brother over several days later for round two of the drinking games. We're going to stick with the How I Met Your Mother theme and call him Barney Stinson.
Because I was honest about every facet of my life with Tyler, I of course told him about my first drinking escapade with Marshall. He wasn't very comfortable with the idea of me drinking with another guy in his room unsupervised. Tyler then forbade me from ever drinking alone with a male if he wasn't around. I, of course, ignored him and decided to do this day's drinking behind his back. The plan was to stop drinking when he called and said he was on his way which would give me a half hour to sober up and prevent me from drinking too much in the first place based on when he claimed he would be leaving for my dorm.
This time around we would be playing Dance Dance Revolution drinking games with Wild Turkey Honey. The rules of the game were simple: do your dance and take a certain number of shots based on your grade. You would do three shots for an A, two shots for a B, and one shot for anything less. You kept going until you felt unsafe to continue or we ran out of Wild Turkey. Half way through the bottle, Barney had to leave. He seemed fine at the time, but we received a few texts later on suggesting otherwise. After the third illegible text, we called the people he was with and received reports that he was mooning people out of car windows on their way to a football game. We really did a number on that kid...
Marshall and I killed the rest of the bottle and chatted a little. That's when Tyler called, informing me he had already left and would be arriving at my dorm in five minutes. Fuck. I shooed Marshall out of the room and let Tyler in. I managed to get him into the room but I knew he could tell something was up.
"I'm not even going to lie" I slurred. "I'm really fucking drunk". He just laughed at me and asked how much I had drank. I pointed to the bottle.
"Are you okay?" He asked, mildly concerned. He thought I had drank the bottle myself.
"Yeah, I'm fine" I waved him away.
"...Are you sure you're fine?"
"Yeah..." My stomach gave a lurch. Damn it. Why did he have to ask?
"On second thought," I groaned. "could you hand me that garbage can?" I puked once and very quickly got it all out of my system. Then, for whatever drunken reason I had, I decided to inspect my vomit. I was slightly amused, but mostly horrified, to find it a bright purple color. I hadn't eaten anything that day, so I can't be certain what would turn the contents of my stomach that particular shade of violet.
"Cool..." I grinned. "Wanna see?" I held the garbage can out for his inspection. He just took the bag out, threw it away and replaced it for me. After telling him I hadn't eaten anything, we decided it might be a good idea to go get food or I might be in for a rough night. I invited Marshall who invited down his girlfriend. I will call her Lily Aldrin, also following the How I Met Your Mother theme.
We went to a local pizza place. I had nearly fully control over my body on the way down as the full effect of the alcohol hadn't quite hit yet. It was in full swing by the time I ate, though. As we sat, Tyler caught me performing my typical anxious girlfriend routine, checking over his shoulder to read his phone every time he brought it out.
"Why do you keep looking at my phone?" Tyler finally snapped.
"Just making sure you aren't receiving messages from Sea Cow" I replied coolly.
"Who is Sea Cow?" Lily asked politely, smiling from across the table, clueless. I didn't skip a beat.
"That's the bitch he cheated on me with". Lily has told me it was this exact moment that she knew we would be best friends.
We finished our food and Marshall left for a frisbee tournament, sobering up twice as fast as I did. It was at this time that we collectively discovered what happened when I got really drunk: I turn into Jack Sparrow. I'm fully equipped with the hands, the swagger, the knack for avoiding trouble, and the moves like McJagger. Tyler and Lily each had to take one of my arms to escort me back up to the dorms. If I was trying to walk in a straight line, it didn't show. As we approached the one building separating us and the path to the dorms, I noticed something my two guardians hadn't: a cop checking IDs at the door. I came to a sudden halt, both Tyler and Lily looking at me curiously.
"Cop" I gave my one word explanation. "This way..." I scuttled off, dragging the two of them with me as I sneaked through a side door and up a back stairway. We weren't caught, I managed to get Tyler back to my room, I wasn't lectured and, although I didn't realize it, I had met one of my best girl friends.
And so Captain Jack Sparrow lived to drink another day.
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