The Worst Stories From This Weekend: September 24

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This week, it’s all about learning from my mistakes. Last weekend, I tailgated. Hard. I then parlayed that into going out to a boozy group dinner that left me in shambles come Sunday. This past weekend, I was faced with a similar predicament. Texas versus TCU. Tailgating. Dinner following. What did I do? Limited my tailgate to 90 minutes. One beer per quarter. Two drinks at dinner. Was I technically “drunk”? Well, yes. But was I so drunk I’d feel it the next day? No — responsibility, people.

If you haven’t already, listen to yesterday’s episode of The Sunday Scaries Podcast (which you can find on iTunes). Yesterday, I covered the worst parties to attend in your 20s and 30s, a sleep hack that involves white noise, and some listener-submitted anxiety stories. You know, kind of like this column but less drunk and more… anxious, I guess.

Again, subscribe on iTunes if you haven’t already. I promise it’ll make your Sunday a little less angsty.

Now let’s get into this week’s stories. You can email me your own stories at will@grandex.co — they’ll remain anonymous, I promise.

Big fan of these stories! Here’s mine:

Was on the trip of a lifetime this past weekend when a friend called me saying she bought 5 tickets to TomorrowLand. She’s built a squad of mutual friends and asked me to be #5. It was hard to plan another trip while I was on one, especially a trip several months from now. But I was pretty hype since I’ve never been to Belgium. On a spontaneous wave of energy, I pulled the trigger on a few thousand dollars worth of plane tickets, lodging, and festival tickets. Should be a week long adventure with nothing but DJs, partying, and skiing.

The next day she texted me excited that we’re adding two more members to the squad. Unknown to her, it’s my ex + her new bf.

Everything is non-refundable.

You got played, my dude. But in all seriousness, I’m not sure even buying all this was the move in the first place. I know I’m old as hell, but spending more than $200 on any concert is too much. I once paid $175 for a Kid Rock ticket and yes, it was the best decision I’ve ever made, but it was also tough to part with given that 90% of concerts don’t live up to the hype for me. Kid Rock is that ten percent.

I have some sober scaries that have been ongoing for months now but have just gotten much worse.

Back in May I found out that the surgery I had three years ago for my rare knee condition (osteochondritis dissecans), which is essentially arthritis and causes the bone to deteriorate/fall apart, didn’t take and I need to have the surgery again. But this time, instead of being able to do the procedure arthricopically, they need to open the whole thing up and insert bone and cartilage from a donor. As well as remove some loose pieces floating around. This means 2 months on crutches with no weight bearing. Kill me.

Every month that goes by (it can take up to a year sometimes for a matching donor) the pain from the arthritis get worse and my knee feels less stable. To the point that I’m going to the doctor after work today because I think that I tore a ligament in my knee just from stepping funny while walking. Its been swollen for four days and I currently can’t bend my leg past 90, straighten it, or pivot on it. As well as having the occasional pain that I would describe as one of the angriest faces on the doctors chart.

So now I may need to have surgery to fix this torn ligament, as well as another surgery for my knee condition. All hopefully before the end of the year because I’m very close to my out-of-pocket max for insurance in 2018 (due to an unrelated ER visit in March) and I really can’t afford to max out my insurance two years in a row. I’ve been avoiding thoughts about the possibility of having my donor surgery in middle of a Minnesota winter with a fresh deductible to pay into. Because honestly if that happens I’m not even sure what I’m going to do.

Oh, and I just turned 24 a couple months ago. Looking forward to a, hopefully not too long, life of being in lots of physical pain.

Aaaaaaaand I will no longer be cancelling my next physical. Looks like you need to start mashing that subscribe button on every podcast in the top 200 on iTunes so you have some ways to distract yourself. I legitimately have no good advice here. I’m sorry.

Writing about my roommate who has one of the worst case of the scaries I’ve heard of.

Sunday I had to work at a NFL game for the company I work for, so some friends decided tag along and we went up night before and they would go to the game while I worked. Saturday check into our hotel which still had free happy hour going on (great way to start the night) then a few more friends met up with us and we went to a bar to grab some food and drinks. Ended up staying and watching the triple G fight. Then one of my friends got kicked out for being way too drunk and we lost him. We end up getting kicked out later. He’s not answer phone so we go to a new bar. Call one last time and an EMT picked up his phone saying he jumped over a wall and fell 20 feet to concrete and they where taking him to the hospital. I have a few more drinks then Uber to the hospital to check on him. He ended up breaking his left arm, three ribs, his left hip and puncturing his lung.

Hopefully he learned not to jump over walls anymore.

TWENTY FEET? That’s, like, flailing your arms as you fall territory. I once scraped the shit out of my leg jumping off of a chainlink fence, but that was all of eight feet and I landed on my feet. Dude.

This happened last summer so I don’t expect it to make the cut, but I figured I’d share anyways.

My birthday was on a Monday and as is tradition I planned to get extremely fucked up all weekend. Friday was a blur from 5 PM to to roughly 8 PM when I blacked out. Woke up the next morning realizing I had pissed in my girlfriend’s bed during my drunken sleep. I really thought that was the worst thing that would happen to me that weekend… I was wrong.

Me and a few friends started day drinking around noon on Saturday. It was a sunny summer day so it seemed like the right thing to do. A few hours into the afternoon we were playing beer darts and one girl, who couldn’t throw straight if her life depended on it, put a dart into my ankle. There was a little bit of blood and some minor pain but I didn’t think it was too serious.

Fast forward a few hours. The day drinking already had me browning out and by the time we headed to the bar I was completely blacked out. The next thing I remember is laying in my girlfriend’s bed (new sheets) with her screaming at me. I had managed to throw up A LOT, it was every where including on her. In my still extremely drunken state I immediately went on the defensive, somehow thinking there was a justification for me doing this. My next reaction was to try to leave her house, in my underwear. I stumbled out to my car which she did not let me drive so I tried to run home, still in my underwear, but she coaxed me back inside where I finished my night on the couch. I woke up the next morning at 7:30 because my parents were coming to visit that morning and meet her for the first time. I tried to get up but couldn’t walk and my ankle was the size of baseball. Apparently my ankle had taken some major damage from the dart and I just didn’t feel it the night before. I limped into breakfast with my parents and was quickly informed I smelled like alcohol by my parents who don’t approve of my drinking habits. Shockingly, breakfast didn’t go terribly but I haven’t played beer darts since. I spent the rest of the day cleaning, buying new sheets, and hating myself.

Oh, really? You decided that playing a game where you throw darts near people’s feet is a bad idea? Round of applause. But in all seriousness, if you piss the bed one night, you have to take the next night off. There are no ifs, ands, or buts about it. Sit this one out, champ. Let the veterans take charge and hope the team comes out with a W.

Also, major props to your girlfriend for stopping you from driving home. That would’ve been a worse decision than everything else you did that weekend.

This story actually dates back to July, but I waited until now to actually write it in words because I’m superstitious af that if I write my thoughts and fears down, they become reality.

Anyway, flashback to the second week of July. It was my first day of work, and I had just come back from a weekend in New York during which I didn’t even drink to excess. I got my little orientation and walk around the new office, and then got settled at my desk. About two hours in, my stomach felt a little weird, but I thought I was just hungry, so I had some almonds. I was then called in to sit in on a meeting with some of the principals of the firm. I tried my best to pay attention, but had to leave to go to the bathroom, and returned, embarrassed, because I had left my very first meeting in the middle of it. I waited another 10 minutes, then began feeling hot and my stomach was really twisting up. I tried to maintain a poker face but then felt my face kind of start twitching, so I excused myself again.

On my way to the bathroom, I threw up into my hand in the hallway. I knew some more vom was coming, and needed a hand to open the bathroom door handle while clamping my mouth shut, so I kind of just flicked my vomit onto the floor because I was so desperate to make it to the toilet. Made it to the toilet, missed a bit, and then finally hit my target. To make matters worse, the bathroom only has two stalls and one was already occupied. Two more people then came into the bathroom and heard me throwing up and asked if I was okay. One girl brought me water (bless!).

Definitely not the best first impression. I was worried that people would think I was pregnant and had morning sickness or was just really nervous for my first day (not the type of person to get nervous like that). To make matters worse (warning, maybe TMI, but we’re all adults here), I missed my period for two months after this incident, so was therefore convinced it had actually been morning sickness and that I was pregnant with a fetus of a guy I stopped dating a month and a half previously. I took three pregnancy tests, and can now officially confirm that I am not pregnant and that this incident was not morning sickness.

Two months later and still debatable as to whether I’ll ever make friends at work… Also, for closure, I’m pretty sure the cause had been some fish that I ate Sunday night before my first day.

And this, my friends, is not how you want to start your first day at work. Fun fact — I actually Ubered to the wrong location for my first day of work here. I used an address I found on Google only to find out that they had moved offices months before. I had no idea what the lay of the land was in Austin, but Dave kindly drove to pick me up from the parking lot of a yoga studio down the highway. I know it’s not the worst first day ever, but you never want the dude who hired you to be the one picking you up for work like you’re a little kid.

have to turn over my apartment for bed bugs. Only I have bites and my roommate doesn’t and it’s probably my fault because I got bit by a bed bug at work before and now work hasn’t even checked my area. I reported it at work on Wednesday and My boss wants me to come back before they check even though I’m exterminating my apartment. This is probably going to rip apart the relationship of me and the best roommate I’ve had. And if someone is going to complain that this is sober scaries I’ve been taking down a bottle of wine a day to cope. I don’t want T&Ps I want the EPA in NY and CA to chill and let me ship these bed bug strips to my apartment. That would be appreciated.

Uhhhh, NOPE. I’ve never experienced — and hope I never have to experience — bed bugs. I feel like this is only a thing that happens in Chicago and New York? I don’t know, I’ve never had any close friends have to deal with it. Or maybe they have, but they’re just too embarrassed to admit it.

Got flamed at brunch for ordering a Aperol spritz. Now I need all new friends.

Confirmed: you need new friends. Classless losers, they are.

I went to the alma mater this weekend for homecoming (I know, I know). Aside from taking years off my life at the tailgate and having my team disappoint me, I may or may not have gotten the clap. Time will tell on what the verdict is, but if my week continues like this Viking’s game I’ll be expecting to be disappointing a doctor later this week with my apparent lack of self concern

Last week (at least I think it was last week?), I got flamed in the comment section for the “Never Return To Your Alma Mater” rule. And now I have a dude emailing me that he has the fucking clap. Are you not entertained?

I recently moved for work and asked my girlfriend to come too. We knew she needed a few months for her work and to find a job down south. I flew back north this weekend to visit her and make a plan with her and her family for the move and our future (we planned on ring shopping Saturday), but when I got off the plane Friday she broke up with me. I’m now on a flight, single, crying next to a six year old who keeps staring at me. This may be my scariest Sunday ever.

I was once broken up with before getting on a flight. Really fun. Super fun. The best experience ever. Nothing says, “No no, I’m fine,” like having a swollen face while the flight attendant pours your ginger ale. I feel your pain, my dude. You’re better off without her.

Currently sitting in the Dallas airport waiting on my late flight out (don’t blame me my dad booked my flight and is unaware of the early flight rule). This story is from Thursday night and it will probably haunt me for the rest of my life.

So I’m a new post grad (graduated college in May) and am still trying to balance the new lack of homework with the fact that I have to wake up at 6 am and work for 9+ hours every day. So this weekend was a special case because I was flying out super early Friday morning for a family wedding. I was leaving the east coast and meeting my mom in Dallas and then flying up to Kansas with her. So my flight left at 6:59. All day Thursday I told myself I would get all packed and go to bed early and be an all around responsible adult… if you can guess that did not happen. At least I was totally packed Thursday night but I decided I could definitely control myself and go out with my alcoholic roommates the night before I needed to be at the airport at 6 am. Well I proceed to black out harder than I think I have ever done and next thing I know my roommate is waking me up at 6:04 saying uh I think you are suppose to be at the airport right now. So I jump out of bed (I was still in my clothes from the night before) call an Uber and attempt to wash off my make up and look like a human. Thankfully my luggage was waiting for you and my Uber made it to the airport in a decent amount of time. I get to the airport at 6:30 – my flight is boarding – and I don’t have TSA precheck. Thankfully the girl working security takes pity on me and lets me slide into a newly formed shorter line and I make it through security and run with my shoes in my hands to my gate. I made it there by 6:44. And then it hits me that I am 100% still drunk.

I get on the plane and am the window seat with two other people beside me for a 3 hour flight. I attempt to go to sleep for the first two hours, but then someone across the row from me opens their window and my hangover starts settling in. I desperately just needed to get up and go to the bathroom maybe try to pull trig but the two people between me and the isle are so dead asleep their mouths are hanging open. By the time we’re descending I’m convinced I will be throwing up. Finally we land and I tell them I’m sorry I have to get up I’m going to be sick. I bolt to the bathroom where I try to pull trig but can’t do it. Finally I get to Dallas where I am met by my mother who is not at all amused by my hungover disgusting state and the fact that I look like I haven’t slept or showered in days.

We board the hour flight to Kansas and my stomach is not feeling great. The turbulence ends up being really bad and about 25 minutes in it hits me – I am going to be sick. I turn to my mom and tell her and as she is getting up to let me out to go to the bathroom I projectile vomit all over her seat and the floor and her. Everyone around me just stared with their jaws dropped. Thankfully the guy on my other side handed me the barf bag because almost immediately I was at it again. My mom was so thoroughly disgusted with me. She said in all the years she had been flying with me (23 to be exact) I had not once thrown up on a flight. Then the flight attendants were so annoyed with me all I could do was just keep saying “im so sorry” over and over. I then had to spend the rest of the flight sitting next to a seat covered in my puke while my mother moved to the seat behind me and glared at the back of my head. Honestly the worst part was the sweet lady in front of me thought it was because I was motion sick from the turbulence and offered me some Dramamine – my mom said it took everything in her not to say, “don’t offer her that – her dumb ass is just hungover.”

Needless to say I will no longer go out the night before an early flight anymore.

Your mom is savage and I somewhat respect it. Gotta pay your dues.

It’s so easy to go out hard before you go on a flight somewhere because your brain defaults to thinking you have nothing to do the next day and you’re about to be on vacation (or at least out of town). I’ve made this mistake before too. But you simply can’t back into vacations like that or else you spend the rest of the time stewing over your regret. Pack, take some Zzquil, and get to bed early. It’s way more fun to spend your flight pounding mimos than it is spending it sitting next to a seat covered in your own vomit.

I have developed a nasty fall head cold and I found out that my college crush (that was my neighbor freshman year) is getting married; long and massive story short she was the one that got away because I was a stupid, stupid idiot.

Can somebody come over and make me some soup?

Nothing stings like seeing your biggest crush get engaged. Well, maybe your ex getting engaged. Actually, definitely your ex getting engaged.

It’s 8:29 PM. I am writing to you from a somewhat smelly, hella uncomfortable bus headed to DC. I was visiting my best friend who lives in NYC. I am violently hungover from the admittedly risky Sunday bottomless brunch and wondering why are bottomless margs even an option during brunch?

My wallet is significantly lighter from the brunch and the drunk shopping that ensued afterwards. However, my wallet is mainly lighter because I missed my original bus home (due to an incompetent lyft driver and unforeseen road closures) and had to re-purchase another bus ticket. Why is New York traffic always awful? Why? I failed to take your advice of “always take the early [insert method of transportation] home”. I have regrets.

The only silver lining is that I took tomorrow off.

Pray for ya girl.

Please please please tell me you took work off last week and didn’t call in sick yesterday. If so, everyone knows you’re hungover. I hate to tell you that, but it’s the truth.

I really overdid it with the sports this weekend. I went to my alma mater’s football game, followed by an MLS game, on Saturday. Then, very hungover, I went to an NFL game today (fuck the saints). I’m estimating a two-day hangover which will be miserable at the office, as my boss is coming back from vacation this week. Also my work laptop’s hard drive crashed so I’ll be spending all of tomorrow manually recovering files from various emails over the past 3 years. Btw I had a frito pie for the first time ever this weekend. I’m with you Will, I don’t get the hype.

I’m a big fan of #sports, but that’s too many #sports for one weekend. And yes, Frito Pies are overrated.

Been battling what feels like the worst hang over ever, for several days straight. Can barely get off the couch, can’t eat anything, etc etc…. Super fun weekend you may ask? Nope – just a tiny human growing inside me, and there ain’t nothing scarier than that thought (Also the joy, of course).

I want to congratulate you on the pregnancy but you didn’t indicate whether or not it was intended. Screw it, let’s celebrate life. Congratulations on the new human.

Sober(ish) scaries this weekend. After a long tailgate and not going to the football game I looked at my phone after my 4 hour 4-8 pm nap to see a text from a long distance fling (Not really sure what to call it at this point) asking if I had been seeing anyone else since I had moved to which I responded no and then she proceeded to get mad. Not sure if I should run or if I should have been long gone already by this point.

Wait, why did she get mad? Did she find you on Bumble or something? You’re not telling us the entire story here, guy.

Went to visit some friends this weekend and I’m not doing well. I have a 7am flight back to NYC tomorrow morning and then have to go straight into work. I woke up shaking this morning, haven’t checked my email since Friday morning, cracked my phone screen, and threw up in front of a mother and her two small children tonight after dinner.

And to make things better I find out what my raise for this year is going to be tomorrow afternoon. Sunday scaries are on level one million.

And this, my friends, is the only time you should take the late flight home. My friend who lives in London had to get on a Sunday night red eye and roll straight into work from New York City after a bender of a weekend. Never EVER the move. See you guys next week. .

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Will

Will (Twitter / Instagram) is the host of The Sunday Scaries Podcast.

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