As we all know, a night of drinking can have its negatives: drama, tears, belligerence, misplaced belongings, major overshares, ill-advised hook-ups, iller-advised drunk dials and vomit. The Lush saw a lot of vomit last weekend.
As it turns out, the Lush is actually a surprisingly cool head to have around when drinking goes awry. That is, when she is not creating the drama herself. We won't discuss the infamous Lost Cell Phone Incident of Reading Period Fall 2005 (I am surprised my roommates still speak to me), the Night of the Cigarette Hole in the Lush's Favorite Shirt (Spring 2004 - thanks Josh) or the majority of freshman year.
The Lush is proud to say she is not a vomiter. I can count the number of times alcohol consumption has resulted in Saturdays spent on the bathroom floor on one hand, although my record reveals a peculiar affinity for porches in that regard.
Everyone needs to be taken care of from time to time. So, to the vomiting friend I babysat for two hours on Thursday night, no apologies necessary. It happens to the best of us.
I had higher, vomit-free hopes for Saturday night: my long-awaited, oft-delayed trip to Providence College for my friend Rebecca's birthday. With tales of her unruly suitemates swirling in my head, my cousin and I made the drive down not quite knowing what to expect.
My cousin turned back after merely an hour, due to a combination of fear (I surmise) and a bad case of the bird flu. (Is it offensive to joke about the bird flu? I hope not; it's kind of funny - in the same way that mad cow disease is funny.) But the Lush remained and was almost immediately peer-pressured into funneling a beer.
After consuming a delicious peanut butter and fluff sandwich to stave off premature drunkenness, we were off to meet a keg of Bud Light with our names all over it. Rebecca and I performed surprisingly well on the Beirut table, considering Becca was all but useless by halfway through the first game - she had begun her celebrating before the Lush arrived. And since, as a result, I was drinking our entire side for the next three games, I, too, proved useless in later rounds. My lack of concentration further contributed to my devastating losses in a series of epic "Creep-Offs" with Becca's roommate Sharon. She's a creepy girl.
We cabbed it over to a bar called The Fish Co. in a crowded ride that felt like eternity - because the boy on my lap was crushing my bladder. Upon arrival, my cheapness fooled me into ignoring the fact that I hate Magic Hat beer (it was the only thing on two-dollar draughts), but by a strange sort of mercy, I spilled most of the beer when I fell in the middle of the bar. The Lush is kind of used to falling when drunk, so I'll consider it mercy whenever possible.
In my defense, I was off-balance owing to my stepped-on toe and was knocked over. But considering I had to be reminded of the fall the next day, maybe my memory is not so trustworthy in this case.
I needed to switch drinks so I treated/peer-pressured the birthday girl to a round of tequila shots she definitely did not need, then made the wise switch back to Bud Light. Why fight a good thing?
The Lush retreated to the pier out back for some good, old-fashioned American college-style drunk dialing and sketchy 40-year-old avoidance. The Fish Co. had an inordinate amount of sketchy 40-year-olds - fishy if you ask me.
Upon returning inside, we all got down to a little something the Lush likes to call "dancing like crazy" - traceable in origin to a mysterious, unprovoked message I once drunk-texted to my sister which said only, "Dancing like crazy." During said dancing, it became quite clear that the birthday girl had had a little too much birthday fun, so her boyfriend James and I decided to take her home.
Now, normally, my antics and this column end with leaving whatever bar or party I happen to be chronicling. Not this week my friends; believe it or not we are just getting started. We had trouble finding a cab, so the Lush took a proactive stance. While James babysat Becca, the Lush asked a Providence cop for a ride home. Nope. I eventually just ventured into the street and forced the next cab to stop.
The cab ride proved quite eventful in and of itself, as we tried in vain to get the driver to pull over so Rebecca could puke; he refused. James took one for the team in an unprecedented display of devotion and said she could puke on him. Luckily, she held it together until much later in the evening.
We arrived at her dorm and, luckily, the random purse I was holding turned out to be Rebecca's. Not so luckily, it proved to be sans keys. Poor James took on the task of holding Rebecca up while the Lush went on an epic search for an RA so we could get the security number to get in the room.
This somehow led to a chance encounter by the elevators with my childhood best friend, Karen, who I hadn't seen in four years, and I ended up in her room eating chocolate Teddy Grahams. Now that was surreal.
I eventually got back downstairs as one of Becca's suitemates was letting us into the room. Somehow, we managed to sleep about 20 people in a suite made for six, so there were bodies everywhere.
Mercifully, the Lush passed out right away. The birthday girl managed to pick her way through the bodies to the bathroom at 5 a.m. for the much-awaited vomiting, where I am told she was discovered passed out in her birthday suit.
Well, the Lush was promised an eventful night at Providence College, and she sure got it. It is sometimes hard not to resent the friends we end up taking care of, calming down or cleaning up after. But the Lush does her best to remember that however you may have been inconvenienced by a vomiting, angry or crying drunk friend, the friend is a whole lot more inconvenienced the next morning when he/she probably feels like dying and definitely feels like an asshole.
So give your friend a break. You know you've been there. I know for damn sure that I have. Besides, you get to laugh at them. Want to laugh at the Lush? Sophomore year, after taking a two-story funnel of beer to the left eye (I still blame bad pouring), photographs prove that I laid on the floor of a first-floor Miller hallway asking someone to get me an eye-patch and asking my friends if they would still love me if I was a pirate.
Yarrrrrr.
Jillian Harrison is double majoring in history and archeology. She can be reached via e-mail at Jillian.Harrison@tufts.edu, just not on Friday, Saturday and Tuesday nights.
