Monday, August 1, 2011

Guide to Blackouts

You wake up facedown, on a cold cement floor. The first thing you register is the gut-wrenching feeling in your stomach. You look around and realize you’re in a small stone cabin. Looking down you realize you’re wearing someone else’s clothes and you don’t know why. As you stumble to your feet you realize you are missing a shoe. It is nowhere in sight. Finding your way out of the cabin you realize you’re in even bigger trouble; the cabin is in the middle of the woods. You dig into the murky cloud of memories from the night before. The last thing you remember is smashing the bottom off a beer bottle to funnel Rubinoff. Then…blank. That’s right; you blacked the fuck out.

Don’t panic, blackouts aren’t anything to worry about. In fact, they can be pretty fun. And if you follow this helpful guide you’ll be laughing about this in no time. (Your friends are probably laughing about it already.) Unless you read this guide while blacked out…talk about a 1.75 liter of irony.

1. Smile. You probably just had an awesome night. No matter how many people you pissed off or regrettable things you did, odds are you had a blast doing it. At the very least you’ve probably earned yourself a funny story, even if you aren’t the best person to tell it.

2. Take in your surroundings. (aka figure out where the fuck you are.) 90% of the time you’ll be safe and sound in your own bed. The other 10% is where the fun/trouble begins. The distance from the place you blacked out to the place you wake up is directly related to how much of the night (or day) you blacked out. 30 minutes? You’re probably on the floor of your room. 2 hours? Maybe you made it to a friend’s front yard. 5 hours? Let’s hope you’re familiar with your town’s forest areas. 8 hours? Let’s hope you have your passport with you.

3. Check your pockets. The Hangover movies got something right. (Hopefully you had a night as awesome as they did. Except for the getting banged by a tranny part…Spoiler Alert) Sort through whatever clues you might get that can piece together your night. Really this is the only reason receipts were invented. How else would us poor drunk bastards find out how much money they blew in an alcohol inspired haze. This is even more exciting if you wake up in someone else’s clothes. There’s no telling what you’ll find in the pockets.

4. Check your phone. Phones are an obvious one; drunk people love talking to people. No matter how unnecessary or inappropriate it is. Whether you’re telling them what a crazy night you’re having and insisting “you should have been there, you would have dug it the most” or soliciting a late night booty call it’s all vital information in the mystery that is your life. No matter how pissed they were about the call, once they find out you don’t remember making it they’ll be dying to help you piece things together. Phone and text records are also helpful to figure out who you were hanging out with in case this isn’t immediately obvious.

5. Sit back and enjoy the tale. Once you find someone who can actually tell you what happened, buckle in for a great story. You know when people tell a hilarious story and you think “wow I wish that had happened to me that sounds like a blast”. In this case, it actually did. You owe it to yourself to draw as much enjoyment from the story of your night. You know, since you don’t remember enjoying it the first time around.

6. Make your apologies. People who are blacked out do stupid shit. It’s part of life. These indiscretions will range from little, like stealing a friend’s car, to big, like getting that same friend wanted by the police (sorry for both Tony). Don't feel too bad about it though. If you don't remember it, its not your fault. You aren't so much  apologizing for something you did as you are saying sorry for something bad that happened to a friend. Sorry you got a speeding ticket bro, sorry you didn't do so well on your test, sorry I punched you in the face and then laughed about it.

So as we leave the weekend and enter the real world once again, reflect on all the awesome things that happened. You probably pissed some people off. But they won’t stay mad for long, because it was probably really, really funny.

1 comment: