How I lost track of half a night

I want to start this post off explaining that I do not condone drinking in large quantities nor do I like to drink in large quantities in one sitting. If you feel that this is your type of life style I suggest seeking help because it is not a healthy life style choice and has some very negative consequences. Since I don't mind making fun of myself I feel I must relate this story though.

July 4th this year was a crazy night for me. So crazy in fact that I lost track of a good chunk of it. Alcohol is a bitch when you forget how much you are able to drink before you get really really drunk.

With that said I planned a trip out to the Barnstormer in Iowa this year on July 4th with my best friend and his girlfriend. There were a few indie bands there that I was excited about seeing and it was bring your own beer. I was not driving for once so I could finally sit back and have a few too many beers.

In preparation for this trip I went out and bought a 6 pack of my favorite beer, Sapporo, and made a mix of rum and coke with 100 proof rum and put that in a water bottle. I ended up bringing 4 bottles of Sapporo with me because I had 1 the night I bought it and 1 before I was picked up at my house. The rum and coke was brought completely intact in my water bottle. I realized after the fact that I put a bit over 1/3 a bottle of 100 proof rum in there. That is obviously where things started going wrong.

We arrived at the farm that day and were greeted by a tractor pulling up with a wagon attached to ferry people about 1/4 mile down the road to where the concert was actually at in the barn. Here is where I started in a bit on the rum figuring hey why not get a head start on this whole drinking thing. My thoughts were like every other time I go out drinking, but have to leave at a much later time. I figured I would get a bit tipsy fast but not drunk and then use the rest of the night drinking water or what not and sober up by the time it was to leave. Now the tractor driver was driving like a maniac taxi driver from Calcutta while my friend and his girlfriend prayed for their lives as we went 100 miles an hour down the steep cliff that is the dirt road to the barn.

With all the bumps on the dirt road it made it almost impossible to drink my rum. This put me into determination mode. I wasn't about to let a bumpy dirt road and mental hospital patient for a driver ruin my plans of getting my buzz.

Finally he parks and lets us out and we find a nice cozy spot to put our cooler and stuff next to the barn while we here the music coming from the inside. At this point I feel the need to grab a couple of my beers and head on in to listen to the rest of the set being done. I finish off the first beer as I get settled in the crowd inside and start on the next beer. Unfortunately for me the set was just about to finish which prompted me to think, "Hey this beer is tasty, but the set is almost over so I need to chug this one so I can go outside and get another one in between the bands" So that beer gets downed in a hurry and I roam outside for the 3rd beer of the night within 15 minutes of arriving there.

I notice my ex is also there at this point and comes heading over to me with her friend to have a conversation about how things are going and other important commentary on music. I am not feeling the effects of the alcohol yet so and am feeling kind of awkward at this point so its time to finish this beer in a hurry and head on over for my last beer after finishing the conversation. Obviously I was trying to drown out the little awkward feeling with alcohol so that I didn't have to think about it for the rest of the night because this place isn't super crowded and I will be running into her for the rest of the night and maybe drunk me can handle this situation a bit better then sober me. Sober me was definitely not having a rational moment there because it knows what drunk me tends to do and there can be no good that can come of this.

4th beer down and time for water bottle of rum. Water bottle of rum is definitely something that no human should have tested to see if they could finish in a night with the amount of alcohol I placed in it, but 4 beers in me said what the hell lets do this. Needless to say by the end of the next band that was playing which I took pictures of I had mostly finished this bottle of rum and coke.

I wander outside at this point and the alcohol has set in and I am really drunk at this time. I run into ex again and now drunk me is like "Hey its time to be chatty Kathy over here and reconnect and be all friendly." Not such a bad plan when sober, really bad plan when super drunk. I don't remember this conversation at all but was informed later on in the week by ex that we had a pretty epic conversation about life and totally missed the 3rd band of the night.

Epic conversations are definitely my specialty when I am totally wasted since I have done that plenty in college. Topics can range from smurfs to anti-matter in space. It just depends on what type of drunk I am that night. It seems that this night though I was serious/flirty drunk so it was time to do a bit of both of that with her. Apparently at some point I wanted her to drive me home instead of my friend who I had come with.

Anything after this point I have no or very little recognition of since it is a nice blank slate in my memory and is relayed by second hand party members.

Apparently after epic conversation me and ex decided to actually do what we had come there to do....go see bands play awesome music. My body said "fuck that I want to fall down into shit." This is the part where I fell into a wood pile outside of the barn on my way in and was fished out by ex. Somewhere else along the lines I decided I needed to go to the bathroom and managed my way there safely only to exit and face plant into the gravel. One other time I must have decided to help with the Styrofoam cooler or to try and get another beer and instead of actually getting it I did a back flip over it and crushed it. So lesson learned by drunk me = Gravity > drunk me. Unfortunately drunk me took lessons from sober me where Gravity = my bitch.

Another cute story that I was informed of during this night is that somewhere along the lines I ran into some girl who was not amused by my drunkenness when I stumbled into her hard. Also on the tractor ride back to my friends car I had decided I like a conversation that was being had about teaching english overseas. This was being had by my friends girlfriend and another girl. The other girl was cute to my alcohol addled brain so I must have decided to hit on her......in front of her boyfriend. Luckily this was an Indie concert so it was a hippie and they don't like to fight, they just like to "chill man". So I didn't get pulverized which is always a good thing.

The drive home had a pretty good story as well with me sitting in the back seat and we get part way into the main town about 10 minutes from where we left and I must have been starting to feel sick. I start asking for a bag and my buddy pulls the car over rapidly and get out and start puking. Now normally this wouldn't be a funny affair, but the place where we pulled over and my choice of puking spots is what made this amusing. The place was a church with the perfect sign for the night. On this sign it had printed on it "Come as you are". Obviously I came there really drunk and decided to show my appreciation for their awesome sign by puking in front of the building just to let them know I was paying attention.

After this I must have passed out in the back seat until we got to my place and I was unloaded so that I could stumble into my apartment. I woke up the next morning with a mild hangover and the need to figure out all the things I had on me from the night before. In my pockets were 1 glow stick (no clue where this came from), my wallet (yay), my inhaler (phew), and nothing else. This caused a bit of panic because I needed to now find my apartment keys and my phone. Luckily my apartment keys were thrown on the floor by the front door, but the phone was still MIA. Fortunately sober me realized I had ridden home with my buddy the night before and figured it was probably in his car, which it was. I also managed to retrieve my water bottle from his car as well. I call that a win because I never expected to be able to carry that thing with me everywhere in the state I was in.

So lesson learned. Sober me needs to not let awkward me run the show when alcohol is present. Drunk me also needs to take a lesson on gravity.