Blackouts and Morning Afters

by Kathleen Warmbier (@Persian_Royalty)

Everyone, or at least close to everyone, that attends a four-year university has experienced at least one epic night that they remember less than a third of and those panicked first moments after awakening the morning or afternoon after. Next comes the confusion infused with the "How the fuck did I get here?" This is classic and photograph worthy. The morning after my first time of being close to blacked out was typical of my peers and the stories I had heard prior to my own. I woke up, alarmed as to how I teleported from the party to my own room. The sparks I had downed in less than ten minutes flashed across my mind and splashed onto my tongue and throat. Nothing as repulsing as remembering the taste. It was the closest to PTSD that I have ever been. One eye opens...the other follows nervously as if it were being told to stick its hand inside a pitch black hole in a frat house.

My dorm room spins, and once it finally come into focus, I begin to assess what I was up against. First off, I was completely naked except for my drivers license stuck to my nipple by an unidentified sticky substance. The right path to take on this road of regret, when faced with something so repulsing, was definitely ignorance is bliss. At least my nipple was looking out for me, because replacing a drivers license is a real bitch. I decided to thank it for babysitting, until I saw my knees and shins. They were completely covered in blood and dirt. So many things ran my mind at that moment, and most were shameful possibilities. After imagining awful scenario after awful scenario, I realized it could be worse if I had found a couple of ones or a five stuck to my nipple instead of my trusty ID. With a sigh of relief, I think to myself, "I probably was just pushed or something. My morals shouldn't have completely fled the scene with the arrival of the sparks." I then began to continue scanning my body for evidence. My hair was in a pony tail. How odd. Also, I was surrounded by vomit. This shouldn't have been the worst of my findings, except for the fact that my puke was pretty "red sparked" down, and it got on my most prized possession: my robins egg blue electric blanket. "Damn it!!" exited my lips with disappointment and anger. Washing an electric blanket is a bitch. Try it sometime, and then try to survive a night in Idaho with roommates that like to sleep in arctic conditions. To top it all off, my phone is M.I.A. and I can only imagine the people that found it and went through the pictures. Don't judge me. Everyone has sent a nudie or three. Good thing I'm trying to become an educator. The last thing I need is my students doing a book report on the dangers of sending pictures, while a picture of me sitting on my dresser in black lace booty shorts with my back arched so hard a vertebrae disk is about to slip is floating around.

Back to being surrounded and completely covered in vomit, I jump out of bed in a panic to find the nearest roommate and ask them what happened. Of course, I got up too quickly and my entire world turned pitch back as I tried not to collapse into the liquidy substance. Thank god I had learned how to play lava monsters on the playground of elementary school, or else I would have been trapped in my bed until someone came home and heard my whimpering. No one was home. Typical. So, my survivor instincts kicked in and I skyped my girlfriend that was currently nannying in Spain, and my friend back in Oregon that to put it simply, had no way in hell of understanding being blacked out and covered only by a drivers license. The only thing they were both confused about was why I was still naked. Impaired judgment at it finest. "Sorry, I was too distracted by the vomit covering my math book, and my knees looking like I had been pushed down a gravel hill on one of those blue, unreliable, four wheeled scooters we had in second grade gym class." The most unstable pieces of shit transportation EVER. I think the longest I had ever been able to stay mounted on one was four seconds, and that was on a great day.

Putting all the skills I learned from that sexy guy named Bear on the Discovery Channel to use, I put unsoiled sweats and snow boots on and headed over to always-fun-wing-woman's house to find out what happened. After trekking through the blizzard with the worst hang over in life, I finally got to her apartment, only to be greeted by an arctic cold front coming from her pissed off half of the north pole. Looking pathetic and like a lost puppy with mange, I asked slowly and out of breath, "What the hell happened last night? My phone.. my knees are bleeding..how did my hair get in a pony tail..." I had to pause and then look up. Her only cold-hearted response was, "It was just a bad night for you." Her and her boyfriend then left me in her apartment, searching for answers under couch cushions burned by ash and behind a throw pillow with fancy dangling balls that reeked of weed. It took two days and about eleven hostile phone calls to find out what the fuck happened to me, my war zone encrusted carcass, and my phone.

Now this was no ordinary weekend; it was the weekend of the apple cup for WSU, which meant I had been hitting up all my little jump-offs from Tacoma and Seattle, and was making plans to hang out. I had especially promised green-eyed-monster that I would spend the entire weekend with him while he was down here. Whoops. Of course that didn't happen. Lets be serious. All guys should know by now that girls are the biggest bullshitters known to man, and they can't be trusted. While ignoring phone calls and lying about my location, I was spending my time with my main man back at school. That Saturday night, the night to overshadow all the rest, I had promised green-eyed-monster I would finally see him. I got all sexed up in my friend's black, one-sleeved freakem' dress and my highest red heels. Clearly, I wasn't planning on being incoherent for most of the night when I put sky-high heels and a dress that barely covered my ass on. It was all fine and dandy at the beginning of the night. We, meaning me, was getting trashed for no reason and having a good night, up until I demanded that we go to this football party green-eyed-monster told me about. After my friends and I followed his ass to random destinations around Pullman, and basically played real life "Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego", we finally agreed to meet him at a house where the party was being held. My biggest feat of the night, and the explanation for my gory shins, was the ice hill that masked a driveway. Apparently I had attempted to get up the hill, but made a nice home for myself on the ground. I'm sure hundreds of fellow onlooking drunk spectators watched me like they were at the zoo and I was the placenta-covered new baby giraffe trying to stand for the first time. Knees and ankles buckling, I fell down over and over again onto the unforgiving icy driveway. Finally, after nine times of attempting and falling hard, my friend saw a giant Samoan on the team coming over. He proceeded to pick me up and take me up the hill. Classic. I'm sure letting me fall NINE times wasn't needed, but karma is a bitch, and my friends needed some way to punish me for catastrophically spoiling everyone's night.

After shoving my throat with bread, they randomly found their way back through the gutted and grenade swarmed party house, and we walked back to the car. This is when I stumbled upon green-eyed-monster. Cantering up to him looking a serious hot mess, I threw my arms around him because I was so excited to see him. His first words to me were, "Hey girl, I want to introduce you to my main nigga." I turn around to discover not only a guy I knew, but my main man at school, that I had been with that morning. Unfortunately, green-eyed-monster's cousin, who I used to talk to and bullshit, was also with them. Triple whammy. Big fucking surprise to me. Karma for sleeping in and missing church the week before. The biggest middle finger from sweet baby Jesus i could have possibly imagined. All of a sudden, my world crashed and they all started firing bullets and asking questions. Even though I was drunk, I still remained a pimp. And a true pimp knows never to answers questions when a bitch is asking 'em. Unfortunately, I had three hoes asking me the same questions at the same time, which was like drinking beer before liquor. Never a good situation. My only response was to vomit everywhere. My friends pulled up to the crime scene in "better late than never" fashion and smuggled me into the car and away from the scene I had created. Unfortunately, green-eyed-monster had become a stage five clinger with his eye on the pussy prize, and hopped in the car with us. I was a drunkin mess and he was pissing off my friends. Classic. After me making a fool out of myself for a good five minutes, somehow green-eyed-monster decided it was ok to go in for a kiss. Thinking back to this part of the story, I'm hoping he had momentarily forgotten when I had puked up spaghetti and red spark five minutes ago, barely missing all the cool greys. Lucky bitches.

He leaned in, and my only reply was a finger to his lips as always-fun-wing-woman threw an empty cup at me. Implanting my face in the cup, I puked and puked and puked until I filled it up. I rolled down the window and dumped the puky McDonalds $1 large drink out and then continued to spew stomach bile. Cup overflowing in a matter of seconds, I made another swift emptying act, and I got a chance to look at green-eyed-monster just long enough to catch him exiting the car in the middle of a random street. My trusty friends pulled over four more times during the ten minute drive back to school to let me puke. It was an interesting night, and I am surprised I didn't start throwing up my large intestine for all the time I was retching. I ended up in my own bed with my ID card on my nipple. Top Night.