Still a Novelty

About a week ago I got a message from my cousin asking how I was doing and if the lowered drinking age novelty had worn off... According to last night it absolutely has not. The night started calmly enough with my flat mate, Bri, and I watching 'Kill Bill Vol. 1.' After realizing that our friend’s pirated version did not have subtitles for the Japanese dialogue, I had to work diligently to explain to my friend what was being said in those scenes. Considering I don’t speak Japanese, translating the last 30 minutes of the movie was very difficult and I was quite tired by the time if was done. I then realized it was only 9 o'clock.

I happen to think that watching a movie and going to bed early is a perfectly acceptable way to spend my Saturday nights, but some of my flat mates do not share this view. After I lost several whining matches, I prepared to go out. I put on my new shirt/ dress thing from monsoon (one of my favorite stores over here), a pair of black jeggings, and my ugly biker uggs. I hoped that this would be enough to repel men at the bar, as being hit on annoys me.

At the same time my roommate was consuming half a bottle of Smirnoff vodka (mostly strait, though at one point one of our flat mates made an attempt at getting her to drink it with orange juice). She stumbled into our room and said she needed help getting changed and that I needed to do her makeup. I complied (though it was not one of my better makeup jobs) and we were able to get her ready. To add to the absurdity of the situation, she kept repeating 'Makeup then drink! Why do I always forget that order!' As we prepared to leave, I looked over at her bed and saw how much stuff was on it. From personal experience I have learned to leave my bed completely bare of everything but sheets and pillows when I go out, to make it that much easier to pass out when I get home.

We got to the bar and since it was after 10 o'clock, we took advantage of their very generous 241 cocktail offer. I came into the evening expecting to only get two drinks, but I somehow managed to end up back at our table with 2 pitchers of Blue's Brothers (a drink made of Blue Curacao, Vodka, Lemonade, and Sweet and Sour) and my flat mates got two pitchers of Tropical Illusion (which is Vodka, Midori, Sapphire Gin, Bacardi, triple sec, Malibu, pineapple juice, sprite). Of course the awful part of this story is that they were sharing their two pitchers and I was not. Three hours later there was a gaggle of American students at our table and everyone was hazy due to joy of 241 cocktails. My flat mates and our neighbors decided that it was probably time to head back as we had reached our £10 drink limit for the weekend.

After skipping back to our apartment (literally), four of us drunkenly attempted to get ready for bed. Talia walked into our room and fell on the floor. She did not move and for a moment I thought she had passed out. Then our drunken flat mate Neal walked in, popped a squat on the floor and hugged her. As they sat on the floor they looked like little cherubs with their happy drunk smiles and puffy eyes. I realized that I need to get to bed, but since Talia was continuing not to move and I didn't think that I would make much progress trying to move them alone. I called Neal’s roommate, Drew, to come help me get Neal and Talia into their respective beds. Drew got Neal to the door, but not before Talia got up and ripped her dress off. After that Talia lost any energy she had previously had and collapsed over her bed and all the stuff on it, including my lamp, which she had borrowed the previous night.

I went over to her and told her that she needed to take her contacts out, like she had instructed me to do previously that night. She said that she didn’t want to and passed out across her bed. This is an artist interpretation.

I went on my computer and sent this message to my friend in the US...

After that, I drunkenly stumbled to the bathroom to brush my teeth (something that I never forget, drunk or not) and I fell fast asleep.

I woke up at 7ish and looked over at Talia’s side of the room. I believe that there are certain WTF moments in life that will never be explained and no amount of reasoning will ever explain how the hell things ended up the way they did. This was absolutely one of those situations. As I looked over I saw Talia had hardly moved but had managed to get a cover over herself (but had tore the rest of her bed apart). This would be completely normal for someone who was in a deep sleep, but next to her bed was her wardrobe, lying flat on the ground. While we may not have the hardiest furniture in the world, it would take a large effort to push over that dresser, especially when you are in a drunken deep sleep and had apparently not moved all night.

Somehow in the middle of the night she had gotten on her duvet, knocked over her entire cupboard, and hardly moved.

As I looked over at her side of the room she stirred. In a hung-over haze similar to my own, she looked at the area next to her bed, where clothes and papers lay strewn over the floor, with an entire wooden wardrobe lying over the area. Oh, and my lamp was completely crushed.
"What the fuck happened?"
"I was going to ask you the same fucking thing..."
It was absurd and in our blurred state of mind the only logical thing to do was laugh. So, on the bright side, we started our morning with a long laugh. On the downside, we followed ridiculous start to the morning by trying to put the wardrobe back upright while we were both naked.

So cousin, apparently the novelty of the drinking age has not worn off. Hopefully we will learn for next time... Or we could just get stronger furniture.