In order to properly hold myself up, I need a good friend. She will support me, hold me up and even sustain bruises to prevent me from getting a few good shiners myself. The best version tore a hole in her jeans and got a dark purple dent on her leg from crashing to the sidewalk with me.
A friend will not only laugh at my stupidity but cheer on my brash boldness as I grab the nearest faintly good-looking guy and lay a big wet one on him. With any luck, he'll have decently thick beer goggles on, too, and not notice that my mascara is running or my hair is frizzed out from hours of beer swilling. And, with any luck, I might vaguely remember his face the next day, or at least not be chagrined that I kissed a complete stranger - a complete stranger who possibly has more than 10 years on me, a veritable old man.
I, the drunken girl, am prone to commit minor crimes in my altered state-just after Halloween or just prior, I may perhaps be caught in the act of hurling a pumpkin which does not belong to me, merely to be gratified by the sound as it crushes into itself and collapses with a dull thud against the concrete.
I may also be guilty of screeching with laughter at the smallest thing, making it painfully obvious that alcohol has dulled my senses yet heightened my sense of humor.
Or I might pilfer a rose from a flower vendor as he passes in the bar, basket held high above his head so as not to spill his wares.
Regardless of these acts, one of me can almost always be found at least once on the floor of the last bar I visit. Here we can break me down into one of three types:
The first is the worst iteration of them all: when I lose it all and sprawl, spread-eagled, on the floor of the bar, wallowing in spilled beer, spit and vomit. I may be snidely referred to as a "dirt angel," as often the flailing of limbs ensues as I try to right myself and return to my cruelly abandoned beer.
The second is the sagging kind, when I suddenly lose my knees but manage to catch onto either a stool, the bar or another pub denizen before I completely fall, abject, to the ground.
The most embarrassing, perhaps, is when I must rely completely on human contact for my salvation. Usually this is when I pass out cold, and the motion of my body can be likened to that of someone flinging themselves from a balcony into the seething mass of a mosh pit ... falling, gracefully, sinking with the gravity that only dead weight can carry. My fellow bar-goers and friends catch me as I fall, and hopefully they can find some place to drag me and lay me down before my heaviness becomes a burden. I'm lucky they didn't just let me crack my head on the ground as punishment.
Once the ritual imbibing is completed, there is the treacherous trip home - the next day makes a body thankful that it even made it home without encounters with police or the random basketcase in an alleyway. At least the bums are honest about needing either money or weed, or money for weed.
The spectacle of public urination is the best aspect of the evening, when the bladder is set to burst and there are no gas stations or all porta-potties are locked against all those wandering and intoxicated. Stopping in the middle of the return trip home, en route to safety, many glasses of water and a warm bed, pull down the pants to instant gratification and hoping some pervert isn't camping out in a bush near me, waiting for just this moment.
And then I arrive at home, hopefully not needing to vomit into the toilet, hopefully not requiring the assistance of my friends (to whom I have already been a worry) to hold my hair out of the path of wretchedness.
Waking up the next morning, I swear I have never had a worse hangover, never have I had a more queasy stomach than I have at that moment, never will I touch another drop...until next weekend.
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