Getting Drunk On Summer Fun

Last month, I added a new category called "If". It consists of questions taken from the book If...(Questions for the Game of Life). Today's question is as follows:

If you had to repeat one alcohol or drug experience you've had, which one would you relive?

Well, this is an easy one for me to answer because I can count the number of times I've been drunk on one hand. As for the number of drug experiences I've had, that's also easy; the number is zero.

I'd have to say the one alcohol/drunken experience I'd live over and over again, would be the night that my best friend and I went for a drive after work and wound up at a little redneck bar in upstate New York called Michael's. It was Thursday, August 31, 1990.

We stopped there because we had been driving around for over an hour and we had to pee. Winding through the backroads, Vicki remembered something about a bar she had once been to and guided me, by memory, to where this place was supposed to be. Our bladders cheered when we finally came upon it.

We walked in and stopped dead in our tracks. Having come directly from work, we were both way overdressed for this little country bar. We looked around at a room filled predominantly with men. Clad in jeans and work shirts, hunting caps and plaid, they stared at us a little too long. It was like a movie; they watched us walk across the room, past the pool tables and straight into the door of the ladies room. I think I may have seen another woman there, but to this day I can't really be sure if it actually was a woman.

The bathroom was a teeny tiny two-stalled room that gave us barely enough space to turn around. As soon as Vicki was done, she left to make more room for me at the sink, since out of habit and vanity, I had to check my hair and make sure my lipgloss hadn't smeared.

When I left the bathroom, I briefly looked around for Vicki and found her standing at the bar. She had ordered two beers. Since I rarely if ever drank, I don't know what she was thinking. But as I got closer giving her the "what the hell are you doing?" look, she said "What? It's fifty cent Thursday." That was the first of many dollars that were spent on beer that night.

There were two guys sitting next to us at the bar that night. They challenged us to a game of pool; losers to buy the next round. Let's just say that for someone who rarely ever drank, I seemed to be keeping up with Vicki as we put away many, many little glasses of beer that night. And because we were so good at pool, our dollars weren't the ones being spent.

One of those guys is now Vicki's husband. He was almost my husband, but I made the mistake of pawning him off on Vicki in favor of talking to his friend Chuckie. A decision I regret to this day. In fact, Anthony and I often talk about how were we to have been the ones who got married, we'd be living it up Gotti style somewhere in Saddle River, NJ. It doesn't really matter though, because we're still thick as thieves, the three of us. I even have him listed as "Honey" in my cell phone.

That summer night is one of my best memories of all time. I'd live it over and over again just to experience the laughter, banter and feeling of pure joy I had in those few hours. Vicki and I talked about it then, all the way home, a slow and steady ride, in which each of us kept our eyes on our own side of the road since I was too impaired to watch the entire road myself; and we talk about it now, reliving some of the best times of our friendship together, often wishing we can go back to those very moments. They often trump what's happening in our daily lives today.

So even though I only have a few drunken experiences to choose from, at least there are some I actually wouldn't mind repeating. Which is more than I can say for the time I spent hours on the cold, tile floor of a ski lodge bathroom. Throwing up. By myself. (Although, Vicki was there for that one too!)

So what about you? What alcohol or drug experience would you relive?


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