As a teenager, I only went on a drinking binge once. I was with two of my female friends, Nancy Dickinson and Kathy McMahon. We had scored a case of beer and were drinking it in the back seat (which folded down nicely) of my mother’s Mustang hatchback. It was then that I saw the light.
No, it’s not the light that you see when the end is at hand. I was already at the end, a dead end, one that I had carefully scoped out only days before. The lights stopped about 20 feet in front of my car. Damn, it was Officer Beck, the King County Sheriff. We were busted. I got out of my car and practiced walking an invisible line that seemed to move right along with my unsteady feet. Yea, I could do this drunk test thing I thought.
I never had to. He just made us pour out the rest of the beer and I went home. The next morning, however, I had an aching head. I had my first hangover, all because I wanted to make a little time with a couple of upperclassmen.
You’d think you’d learn all the important lessons early in life. While it was my first hangover with women involved, it was not my last. Each time I have gone on a bender since, I have managed to end up in a place I couldn’t recognize, looking in the mirror, wondering who was looking back at me and searching the room for all my worldly possessions, all in a vein attempt to get the hell out of there.
My friends all know this, of course. They know that I have a weakness for getting drunk on love. Many times in the past I have drunk from the well of love, even to the point of becoming totally incoherent. Why do I do this? Very simple. As we all know, when you’re really in love with someone, they can do no wrong. They can cause you more pain and misery than the human mind, body and soul are meant to endure, but yet, you still think they hang the moon.
Going on a love drunk can be one of the most intoxicating things you can ever do in life. The whole world seems to be right when you’re in the middle of it. A big shit-eating grin appears on your face, you get all giddy, everything sounds good to you and you’re feeling really good about yourself because your inebriated state doesn’t permit you to see the world as it really is.
I’ve had to learn this the hard way. I’ve had some amazing benders over the years. And they have almost all left me with a horrible hangover. Yet for some reason, all the worst drunk fests I’ve had have been with people who were from the south.
This only occurred to me as I was writing my pirate memoirs. As I recounted my many adventures and misadventures, the south kept rising up again and again and again.
I admit that I used to drink up those sweet southern beauties with gladly. I loved their accents and their charming, disarming southern ways. That was, at least, until Connie, the Texas Tornado came into my life. Lust turned into Love which turned into Lush. Yes, it was a lot like playing a game of Boggle but without any of the enjoyment. I was in the middle of a love drunk and didn’t know how to end it. Well, actually, I did. I kicked her out twice. She would diligently write it on the calendar that she also kept track of her periods on: “Robb told me to move out today.”
For two long years she did this. And boy did I have a hangover. My head hurt, the room was spinning, my skin was painful to the touch and I was sick to my stomach. I swore right then and there that I would never take another swig of someone below the 37th parallel. That alone should keep me from having another unwanted hangover.
As we all know, during a hangover we swear off a lot of things. We certainly swear we will never drink again… ever. We even tell ourselves that we’re going to get some new friends, too — maybe some teetotalers. And then a few days go by, your friends invite you to go out with them, and before you know it, you’re dipping in the well again. At first, you resist. You tell everyone that you’ve given it all up. But then today’s special shows up out of nowhere, and you take a small swig. Then another. Then another. Before you know it, you’re saying goodbye to your all your friends and you wake up in another state.
You’re still drunk, of course. If you had sobered up you’d have high tailed it back to your own home. But you’re still on your bender. You don’t care. You just keep drinking it all in.
Inevitably, the well runs dry. You had no idea that there was a limit on your drunk love. Not until the lights come on and the other person in the room announces, “You don’t have to go home, but you can’t stay here.” It’s closing time and you’ve already had last call.
So you head out for parts unknown. You swear once again on your mother’s soul that you’ll never ever overindulge again. You’ve finally learned your lesson. No, really, this time you’re not going to do it. Even if you think it’s free. Because you know it’s really not. Eventually the bill comes due. And I’ve written a lot of checks in the nighttime that the morning couldn’t cash.
So, why do I keep doing it? Why do I continue to be drunk on love, even though I know it may lead to a horrendous hangover? Because just like having a little too much wine, a little too much love can be good for the soul. With any luck, you have the time of your life while you’re drinking it all in and you don’t wake up with a hangover or next to someone whose name you don’t remember or just as soon forget.
Out here on the Treasure Coast, still below the 37th parallel,
– Robb