Things NOT TO DO when you are hungover

Since I started drinking in college, I have been trying to figure out if there is a way for me to make money for the monstrous hangovers I get. I have yet to meet anyone that can match my ability to almost die after a night of heavy drinking. If you are thinking to yourself "why do you keep drinking like that if it makes you feel that way?" you need to stop reading right here. I don't need your negative rationale on my blog. Well, actually, I will answer your question and then you need to stop reading. First of all, when I drink I become very good looking. A few libations also give me the ability to reveal my amazing dance moves. My smile becomes brighter, and my eyes become a little bluer. Also, I become wicked funny and smart (which is pretty tough because I am already pretty funny and smart as is, so I guess I can just go ahead and call alcohol 'magic juice' because it brings me to a level that would be seen if Tina Fey and Stephen Hawking had a kid). So, there is your answer. If you asked that question, you can go ahead and leave my blog now. Go read The Wall Street Journal or something.

For those of you who understand the beauty of things like Irish Car Bombs followed by shots of Goldschlager, please continue reading because I am about to bestow another life lesson on you. The next time you find yourself in a blurry haze trying to piece together the remnants from the night before, figure some things out before proceeding with your day.

One: How hungover are you? Wait, that shouldn't be number one.

One (take two): Are you still drunk? If you are, you might think that you are going to have a fine day because you still feel a little good and you don't realize that the ethanol poisoning has not kicked in yet. BEWARE. Don't make any plans to do anything quite yet. Let that buzz make its way through your body and THEN decide if you have the capability to be a functioning member of society that day.

Two (once you have answered one as a 'no'): How hung over are you? Now this is a tricky question. Much like Dante's Inferno, there are many different levels to a hang over. They range from fuzziness that will recede in a few hours (this would be the first level, where you hang out with the unbaptized or those virtuous pagans, which sounds a lot like my typical Friday night) to an all out knocking on death's door hang over, making atheist bargain with God, where your head may explode at any moment and you can vomit at the drop of a hat or by seeing fake blood on TV (this would be the center of Hell, where the worst of the worst are being chewed on by Satan himself).

Once you determine which level you are on, you can figure out how to proceed with your day.

Levels One through Three: Go ahead and get your shit done. If you have an option for a little more sleep, take it. If you don't, be forewarned that you will probably feel pretty crummy after your very unproductive day at work or what not.

Levels Four through Six: BE CAREFUL. These are some tricky hang overs. They will allow you to get out of bed and function, but will catch up with you very quickly and unexpectedly (much like a bad burrito). They also come with physical signs that make you appear incredibly "torn up" to the rest of the public. These include (but are not limited to): smeared makeup (even if you put on fresh makeup before you left), mismatched clothing, clothing worn incorrectly, sloppy ass hair, squinty eyes, terrible breath, and body odors that strongly resemble the bar you were in the night before. When you find yourself experiencing one of these hangovers, please make a note of some of the worst things you could possibly do at this point (and these are all from past experience):

• Going to a Mardi Gras warehouse that sells every form of bead, trinket, and bullshit that can be thrown from a float in quantities from one to a gross. I did this and decided to buy my mom a $10 necklace (which I refer to as Hoo Hoo beads). You can only guess her response if you have read this post. If you can't guess, it was something along the lines of "Why did you waste your money on this shit? I am not wearing these heavy things anywhere. I'll just give them to a stranger or something."
• Going anywhere with fluorescent lighting. This includes Wal-Mart, the mall, the grocery store, etc.
• Going anywhere that might contain children. This includes Wal-Mart, the mall, the grocery store, etc.
• Going anywhere that might contain other people. This includes Wal-Mart, the mall, the grocery store, etc.
• Going to the Gynecologist. True story. Horrible, but true story. 
• Going to the gym. 

Levels Seven through the Center: DON'T DO ANYTHING. 

• Pull the blinds down. Put the A/C on real high and get some heavy blankets. 
• Turn whatever crappy TV marathon on (my personal choice is Real Housewives of Anywhere or America's Next Top Model) and put the volume on low (just in case NeNe starts yelling, you don't want to have to find the remote- which is usually right next to you or underneath you). 
• Eat things that will be OK coming back up. My personal preference is spaghettios or plain potato chips. 
• Don't watch or look at anything that could make you queasy. One time, my roommates and I were watching an episode of VH1 "I love the 90s" and they showed a clip from Nickelodeon Double Dare- the show where kids would compete and if they lost, some green gooey liquid would be dropped on their head (aka Gak). The instant the Gak appeared on our screen, I high tailed it to the bathroom and lost the Mexican food I had put down as a base the night before. 

Please keep this post in mind the next Sunday (or Tuesday) morning when you wake up feeling like hell. 

Fish are people too...

Well, kind of.

If you haven't noticed, I am quite the animal lover. I come by it honestly- from both my mom and my dad. One of the family friends always says that if she is reincarnated, she wants to come back as one of  my family's pets. They have it good. Even the fish.

When I was a junior in college, I hit a little bit of a low point and decided that I needed something to cheer me up. My friend, KTO, and I were at Wal Mart when we found the solution. Bettas! Almost simultaneously, we picked out our fish and had the same exact thought "I shall name you ------ and you will be the best Betta ever." Well, I don't really know if that is what she thought, but since she doesn't have her own blog, we won't ever find out.
 

My fish was Levi the Leviathan (swimming in the sea of Galilee... glub glub glub) and hers was Moto.

Little did I know Levi the Leviathan was about to teach me a big ass life lesson. When you are depressed, buying a fish will not fix anything. It only makes things worse. Especially if they are an anorexic fish and your roommate's fish is a huge fatty. Katie and I would feed our fish at the same time and you could hear Moto chomping down on his fish niblet from the next room over. Levi, on the other hand, would suck in a pellet and then, in a French accent, spit it out and say "peh... you call this food?" I hated him and his stupid fish guts.

At some point, I tired of my Betta and passed it on to my mother. She says she can't remember what happened to him, but I am pretty sure he was given a funeral at sea... before his time.

I don't know what happened to Moto either, but at some point KTO purchased another Betta, whom she named "Blech." Her reasoning was that she would never have another fish as good as Moto, so why even try. Blech didn't wait around for Levi's fate. He went ahead and did the job himself by jumping out of his bowl. I would too, if my owner named me Blech.

I reestablished my relationship with the fish world last December. Around Christmas, my mother made the mistake of sending me to PetCo with her credit card. I purchased what was on her list, but also came home with two Bettas. One for me and one for her. My parents' cats immediately tried to befriend the fish:

As you can see, Coconut was incredibly friendly. She was just trying to say 'hello':

Rastus, on the other hand, was just a little thirsty. I mean, can't a cat catch a break?

My mother laughed at the inter species interactions for about thirty minutes straight and then immediately got over the idea of owning a fish. She selected her fish (the red one) and walked to the neighbors house. She let herself in and told the two girls that lived there (ages six and nine) "look at what I got y'all for Christmas!" This was immediately met by squeals of delight and their mom looking at my mother with a real sarcastic "Thanks, Cathy." (Sorry, Sherry...)

While my mom's run of owning a fish lasted less than an hour, my fish, Frederick, made it back to New Orleans, where he is alive and well.

No fish were hurt in the writing of this blog.****


****Except for these:

Mmmm mmm KTO says. Gimme that fish/seaweed.

Mmmm Mmmm some bigger fish says. I already got your fish.
Mmmmm Mmmm I say. I like Modelo.

Where it all started.

The inspiration for my blog came from a series of emails I sent out last summer (much like the Leimail of my night in hell the Atlanta airport). The following are a series of rapid fire emails I sent to a friend after deciding that I desperately needed some wine (you know that feeling, right?). Please enjoy. Or don't. If you don't enjoy, please contact a medical professional immediately because it means that you are lacking the part of your brain that can process humor.

9:01 P.M.
I just got back from cake class, and I am covered in icing, and just googled "how to open a bottle of wine without a corkscrew" and then checked my email for the fun of it (before opening the wine) to find SIX messages (back to back) from --------- (insert name here of anyone you know that you don't want 6 back to back emails from... actually that would probably be anyone. If they can't say it in ONE email, then you don't really need to hear it). I really need to find my corkscrew.

9:15 P.M.
Things I found while looking for my cork screw:

A rolling pin

A pastry brush (who knew)?

A lemon squeezer???

A garlic press

A garlic chopper

A carrot peeler

Salad tossers (maybe after all this wine, I will be tempted)

Shish-kabob skewers (good thing I own those for all the times I make my famous kabob)

Two ice cream scoops

Bamboo skewers (maybe I should just go ahead and skewer something)

 

Lessons I learned:

Swiss army knives DO NOT have cork screws on them (what is the point of that?)

Banging a bottle of wine on a flat surface does not actually push the cork up but, instead, builds pressure in the bottle

Jamming a screw driver through the cork of so-banged-on bottle seems like a good idea at the time

Cork breaks up easily

Wine in a banged-on bottle builds up pressure

A screwdriver used to puncture a cork on a pressurized bottle only results in a volcano of pinot noir

Pinot Noir can burn your eyes

Cork floats (not a new lesson, but a reminder)

Tiny bits of cork, while floating, are impossible to remove from wine

 

Lessons I may learn tomorrow:

What cork does to one's digestive system

9:17 P.M.

OK, since I am on a roll here.

 

Why don't they rename the email folder from "outbox" to "outhouse?" That would be much funnier

 

Also, the guy at the walgreens found my purchase of $30 worth of candy (Earl's finest) and two cans of spaghettios hilarious. You know what I found hilarious? His grossly ornate ring that may as well have been taken from Schmiegal, himself. Also, who the fuck asked him if my purchases were funny? I sure as hell didnt.

 

Tonight in cake decorating, we made 'puppies' (two cupcakes turned upside down and covered in pounds of icing). And one of the women in the class begged the instructor for hers because, apparently, it is one of her coworkers birthdays tomorrow. Once she recieved the extra puppy, she then begin to giggle histerically, and informed us that "she's gunna think I made it.....hehehehehhe..... she's on a all cabbage diet....... hehehehe..... She's gunna ruin her diet......hehehehe" I think her coworker should punch her, eat the cake, and then plan on spending the rest of the day in the bathroom.

 

Leila's Life Lesson- Numero Uno

Always travel with extra underwear (on your person). ALWAYS.


If you have not been a lucky one to recieve one of my "Leimails," here is a gift for you. This is my most recent Leimail that I sent from the ground of the Atlanta airport at 3:00 A.M. in the morning.

I wish there was a way to make sure badly behaved people get what they deserve. What is she rambling on about this time? You may ask yourself. Well, if you notice the time, you will see that it is really late/early and I am not drunk/at the goldmine/ watching the freakin royal wedding/ dancing on the pool table at f and ms/ or drinking tequila sunrises at the sae house as the sun comes up on mardi gras day. No, I am not doing any of these things. I am simply at the Atlanta airport. Still. Going on hour 8 here.


So.... The purpose of this email? To try to figure out a way to produce instant karma.... And to get the cinnabon place to open early (but I think I have a better chance with the instant karma thing). Maybe I will just sit outside of their airport hut and whine like a dachshund. I am sure that will be better than sitting on the ground, against the wall, where there is an outlet, right next to the smokers cancer glass bubble. Oh I mean airport room. Seriously, who smokes at 3 in the morning when they are not at any of the places I listed above?

Anyway, I digress. I will now recount the first half of my travel day from hell. And why just the first half? Because the second half is yet to come.

So I booked a ticket with robin out to San Fran for lianas wedding. (ps it does not really matter if you know who any of these people are). Then about two days after I booked the ticket, the Earl of admission asked if I would go to atlanta for work. Absolutely. Slight problem that I was suppose to be flying to the city of gay hippies (and don't get me wrong- i love both gays and hippies, and even much more so gay hippies- if those exist) the same day, but I figured a twelve hour detour to Atlanta wouldn't hurt. If only I could warn Leila in the past. Don't do it!

So I fly out here, do my thang, yadda yadda yadda.

GOD DAMNIT MYBACK HURTS BHJKFHJKJFJKVKHJFGHKD!!!!!!!!!

Anyway... Get to the airport with plenty of time to make my ten o'clock flight. The flight is a little delayed. I am a little grumpy about it. There is a bad storm rolling into Atlanta. We get on the plane a little late. The flight attendants (NOT stewardesses.... Nicole, you tell your mom I say it right) make an announcement that if we all get seated right away, we can get on the runway and beat the storm of the century out of here.

Apparently other people on my plane did not care as much as I did. They did not sit immediately. Thank you woman with cowboy hat who took about 7 minutes to decide if she wanted to put her hat in the bin above her or wear it on her head. Ultimately, when they cancel our flight and we have to stand in line to rebook, you go to the back. And if you are wondering- she decided to wear the hat on her head. Gotta look good when traveling.

Everyone finally sits down and we get going. We make it out on the runway and they say they have grounded our flight and we will wait for the storm to pass. Wonderful.

This would be all well and good until some little snot nose child starts crying in the back. It keeps going and going. And apparently at some point, the mother decides there is something terribly wrong with her kid, and we have to go back to the gate so she can get off of the plane. This could be a point where you take this shit seriously. I did. Until the mom actually got off of the plane with the kid and the kid looks over her shoulder and gives the back of the plane a loud, cheerful 'byyyyyyyeeeeeee.'

During the commotion of the woman asking to turn the plane around, another woman got her panties in a big wad. Because, you know, in a situation where a lot of people are stressed out and being affected, the best thing to do is to publicly freak the fuck out. Wadded panties woman, back of the line.

We get back to the gate and they announce that we are going to be able to take off soon... But then wait.... Nope. Can't take off now. The pilots have passed their expiration dates and can't not make the flight, because it would put them over their hours. Ok, I appreciate you thinking of our safety. But deep down inside I do wonder if that would have happened if snot nose hadn't pitched a fit, and If we didn't have to come back to the gate. And to be honest, I didn't wonder deep down inside, I wondered it out loud to my temporary line friend.



So we all stand in line for about two hours. My line buddies consist of my new line friend and a Hasidic couple with really bad breath. REALLY bad breath. The Hasidic woman informed us that number one freak out happened because the woman on the plane was on her way to san Francisco to be impregnated, to be a surrogate for her friend. Now I am not sure how much the baby gets from the surrogate, but it did make me wonder why type of condition her friend was in to feel like this woman was her only hope.

Well I am going to go search for a carpeted piece of ground. And wait for the cinnabon place to open. Sweet dreams, a holes! Sorry- that was uncalled for. I am just a little tired.

 So, if you are wondering how it ended up... I did make it to San Francisco.... about 14 hours after I wrote this. If you are wondering, I was in the same clothes for about 33 hours. I would forget this until I would get a whif of myself. G-ROSS. Fa-nasty!

I did end up finding a nice little piece of carpet next to a bench in the Atlanta airport. The bench was taken by two other women, so I snuggled down on the ground at the end of it. I hugged my phone, which was on alarm and vibrate, as close to my face as possible. I woke up a few times to wipe the crumbs off of my face and to realize that I had scooted completely underneath the bench.

There was an old man pushing around a dumb squeeky wheely cart for a while when I was writing my Leimail.  You could hear him coming 6 gates away. I could hear him moving around during my sleep and around 5:30 in the morning I heard him purusing all of the floor and seat openings at Gate B-FML. (That is B-FuckMyLife if you don't get it). He squeaked his way around the maze of droolers and squeaked right over my god damn hand.

I sat up immedately and tried to wipe the drool and dirt off of my face. I also gave a few lip smacks to try to determine the foulness of my breath. Old Man took a seat directly across from me. I didn't want to take any more chances of loosing any digits to squeaky cart, so I checked my phone to decide what I would do with the new morning. I then realized that Cinnabon was going to open within the half hour and so my day began! Hoo-hah! I'll take 3 to go, please. Yes I would like them warmed up. Yes- all of them- I've got to start my Thursday right!