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Every time you check your bank statement, the bar tab you can’t remember rises, and your self-respect sinks accordingly, especially when you begin to put the charges into perspective. $47 at a bar whose specials are so cheap that $47 worth of liquor there could kill a well hydrated Andre the Giant. $113 at another bar, where roughly $36 of that was actually spent on yourself. $53 at a 7-11!?!? You make out what looks like a pile of empty 40s and beef jerky in the corner. Goddammit. What you didn’t purchase while shopping at the convenience store like a homeless teenager with a stolen credit card, however, was condoms, which you begin to remember was a potentially horrific oversight after the sketchiest girl from the bar stumbles naked out of your bathroom, informing you, “I puked in your shower, sorry.” Not even the sight of exposed boobs cheers you up.
It’s a miracle and a small victory you’re able to read numbers at all, though. When you awoke earlier you couldn’t even put together a coherent thought. You think, instead, in base human impulses: sleepy, thirsty, hurting, sad, lonely, horny, sick, Whataburger. There’s a better than good chance you came to somewhere completely foreign to you, though even if you didn’t, it still seems that way, because you consumed so much alcohol the night before that you’ve mentally regressed back into your 9-year-old self, and are wondering why you aren’t in your childhood bedroom being reassured that everything you think you remember was all just a terrible nightmare you had about your future. Nope, it’s the present, you drunken irresponsible bastard, and it’s miserable and filled by an array of creeping regrets, at least for the time being.
Having just completed a weekend in Dallas that saw me attend the Cotton Bowl and try my very absolute hardest to give all of my money to Jerry Jones and the drinking establishments of Uptown, while also attempting to fight some bass player as he played on stage (he knocked my beer out of my hand with his guitar, on purpose, not cool), shacking up at a random girl’s Uptown apartment Friday, and waking up at 3pm Sunday afternoon in Highland Park with no concept of time or how I got to where I was, I was feeling a few of those regrets. So, fresh in my mind and because this is the internet, here’s a list of those and other drunken regrets, ranked and explained.
6. Everything You Said Through Any Medium, But Most Specifically The Spoken Word
Actions speak louder than words, which is why this is last, but chances are you were still speaking your words extremely loudly. Shouting them, probably, because you’re an obnoxious drunk and shouldn’t be allowed around people. If you’re lucky, you’re simply being paranoid, and you didn’t say anything more disturbing or embarrassing than, “I’m still in love with her, man, and I think the stress of it is giving me diarrhea, like on the reg.” Of course, you could have gone into full confession mode and admitted to that time you hit a migrant worker with your car last year, shouting the words, “and I just left him for dead in the street, bleeding into a bushel of strawberries. The police never had a clue. His face haunts my dreams, bro,” right as the music at the bar cuts out.
Bad social media posts are regrettable, but they can be read, assessed, and deleted, unless you took a cock shot and uploaded it to Facebook so you could use it as your Tinder pic. People will remember that. Bad drunken text messages, meanwhile, at this point in the 21st Century, should be given a pretty standard pass by any normal 20-something social drinker, or at least that’s what I assume as I send out cryptic, graphically sexual, and intricately detailed assassination plots via mass text to mess with the NSA. And, again, you can read those. You know exactly how terrible of a person you were via text. For the most part, you have no idea what you said to people the night before, and can reasonably assume the worst depending on how much you had to drink.
5. How Much You Drank
The bitter realization that you took twelve shots on top of over a dozen beers and a margarita you inexplicably made at the after party, which was actually some shitty tequila you mixed with slushy lemonade concentrate and should have ended your sad existence, is a tough one to swallow, especially since you’re probably projectile vomiting it instead. Your soul feels crushed, your head feels split, and it’s all your damn fault. Get a hold of yourself.
4. What You Drank
You knew it was going to be a long day of drinking and that beer would be the best option to keep yourself in control. But man, a gin and tonic sounded really good. Hey! That gin and tonic was really good. You should have another! You do. That one was good too! So refreshing. Your waitress brings another. She’s the best, so attentive.
Fast forward to seven gin and tonics later: WHERE IS THAT LAZY BITCH WITH MY EIGHTH G&T!?! It’s 9pm and you’re on pace to black out by 11. Suddenly it’s the next morning and you realize that you switched from G&Ts to Vodka Red Bulls to give yourself some energy. You might as well have smoked meth, because all that did was get you more fucked up while giving you more energy. You tried to fight a guy because he was wearing your rival gang’s colors. You aren’t in a gang.
3. How Much You Spent
“Well this balance isn’t so bad, assuming my rent check has been cashed already.”
*scrolls through recent expenses*
“Shit.”
2. Bad Hookups
Maybe, like in the example at the beginning of the column, some girl comes walking out of your bathroom looking like a Wildling from Game of Thrones. You don’t even know how she got back to your place but you vaguely remember making out next to a dumpster and at some point being asked sardonically, “Are you done yet?” On the ride back to her parents house, which you pray to God she’s staying at because she failed out of college or something, and somewhere in there hangs her high school diploma, you remember, “Oh shit, we actually met at the dumpster.”
1. Fights
However bad a hookup was, and no matter what exactly was being spread during said hookup, at least one of those things was love, and not war, because you should be totally making the former, not the latter. Getting in a fight is just about the ultimate douche move, unless you didn’t start it, and won it. Then it’s awesome.
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Rob Fox
Rob Fox is a Senior Writer for Total Frat Move (as Bacon), Rowdy Gentleman, and Post Grad Problems. He is a graduate, without honors, from the University of Missouri. From St. Louis originally, he currently lives in Austin, Texas, and still has not admitted to his family what he does for a living. He is also prone to having wet nightmares ever since losing his virginity in a haunted house. Email: rob@grandex.co
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Grandex pays well enough that you can afford $113 bar tabs?
When the responsible decision to “light beer only” turns into “G&T doubles,” nobody wins.