Dos Tequilas

Thanksgiving, 2007, has come and gone, and I am now staring directly down the barrel of the final 24 hours of this glorious four-day weekend. Given my current schedule, even ordinary weekends are a blissful escape from the weekly grind, so four days might as well be four years, and each minute of extra sleep, each page of a paper written, and each laugh with friends is precious.

It is now nearly 11:00 on Saturday night. Normally, at this time on this day, I would be out with friends, sharing jokes, foul language, and plenty of liquor. It's these moments of my youth that I work so hard for. For me, it is a great pleasure of my life to meet new people, to cultivate friendships, and to interact with others. I find that my generation is a fascinating one, full of ambition and humor and promise, and it's an honor to be among the people that I sincerely believe will be the ones to restore a sense of confidence and pride in our society. Perhaps that's overstating it--I tend to err on the side of hyperbole occasionally--but I believe every word of it.

Unfortunately, the circle that I tend to hang in is the same circle that happen to be earning PhDs and master's degrees, and as a result, they--like me--have inhuman amounts of work to complete, and so, even though I should be working on the last five pages of my first 20-page paper of the semester, I'm sitting alone in my apartment wishing that I was out with my friends. I can sympathize, though, with their reasons for staying in (the only reason I don't feel the same sense of urgency is that other obligations forced me to complete the bulk of my paper now, several days before it's due, while most others are just starting their work).

Perhaps one of the reasons for my cohort's anti-social Saturday is the fact that Thursday night, post-turkey, when most people were just beginning to settle into their food comas, we all congregated at a colleague's apartment for what I will affectionately dub The Great Tequila Drink-Off of 'Aught Seven. It started innocently enough with chips, home-made pico de gallo, and black bean dip with a couple of margaritas on the side.

It was only once the shots started flowing that the night got interesting.

In truth, I arrived late, after the group had already eschewed the Mrs. T's in favor of straight agave gold. When we tired of shots, we reverted back to margarita mix. When we tired of margarita mix, we got creative--tequila and Diet Dr. Pepper, tequila and water, tequila straight out of the bottle (I don't actually remember and instance of this but have no reason to believe it didn't happen).

Now, I'm a bourbon guy. I had my share of forgettable tequila-induced worship sessions at the porcelain throne in college, so on the occasion that I do return to the hard-drinking ways of my rowdy youth (think three years ago), I generally stick with what I know I can handle. In this case, however, there was one choice, and I was in no position to refuse.

The whole scene begins to get fuzzy after the fifth or sixth drink. We migrated to the living room area talking about politics, relationships, music, sex, school, how dead we all felt under the weight of these papers, etc. Next thing I know, I'm searching frantically on a music downloading site for All-4-One's classic ballad, "I Swear," which I hadn't hear or even thought of since it was the most overplayed song on the radio (approximately 1993).

Next memory: launching into an impromptu duet with a Danish master's student.

Next memory: yelling at the computer when the free sample of the song abruptly ended (something may or may not have been said about this scenario feeling emotionally akin to the infamous "blue balls" phenomenon).

Next memory: noticing that two bottles of tequila had already been drained.

Next memory: pouring myself another drink anyway.

Next memory: holding court in the bedroom on how and where to purchase condo property in Chicago (how I was tagged an expert on this subject, I have no idea, but I remember feeling confident in my advice at the time).

Next memory: back home in my apartment (I think one of the the more sober among us must have acted as the designated driver), eating half-baked bread I had unsuccessfully attempted to make the night before.

Next memory: Daylight. The clock reads 1:45 (p.m.). How did this happen? I'm still wearing my sweater from the night before. My head feels like my brain has been replaced with styrofoam. My breath wreaks of booze and unleavened dough. I chuckle--I vaguely remember feeling this way in college. Scratch that--I felt this way every weekend in college.

Fast-forward 36 hours or so, and I'm finally feeling as though my liver has caught up with me. We're on the same page again, old friend. Oh, how I've abused you, and yet you've always been up to the task. I gave you the night off yesterday out of sheer pity, and although I've tried my darnedest to find some work for you to do this evening, it appears as though you might be getting off easy.

Rest up, friend, for I suspect that we may yet have one or two more adventures left in us.