Ok, here's the scenario; My coworkers sometimes arrange a get together with past and current employees for the purpose of socializing. Every once in a great while I am persuaded to go along. Usually this involves meeting at a bar and having a few drinks while talking about way random stuff. This last Friday was one such occasion. Not only had it been planned for a couple of weeks it served the dual purpose of commemorating the laying off of more employees from the company the previous day. Since a number of my friends were part of the layoff, I figured I had best make an appearance.

Me and the other people on my team catch a ride to the bar with a coworker I frequently mooch rides from. It's early, like 6pm. We are just about the first batch of people there. After a bit of early introductions to those who don't know each other we settle down with the first round of drinks. It's good, people are starting to show, and the evening begins. I'm about done with my first drink as is a friend of mine, Dan.

Dan offers to buy me a drink, and I (of course) accept. He comes back with a drink neither of us have ever had, a Black Orchid. What's in a Black Orchid? I honestly have no idea. However, it is pretty smooth and tastes like lemon ice tea. I'm told by someone down the table, Beth, that three of these, and I'll be done for the evening. That sounds fine. I wasn't planning on drinking that many drinks anyway. The drink disappears in pretty short order, and I then buy a round for myself, Dan, and another friend.

After that things start getting a bit hazy. I remember ordering a third Black Orchid and purchasing a couple more drinks for other people. By this time a whole bunch of people have shown up. We are talking somewhere between 30 and 50 people just in our group. Things start getting a bit wild too. Lots of us are totally hammered. Since I don't remember much other than flashes such as being groped or having someone trying to remove my shirt I won't elucidate any further. My good buddy Abel leads me and another friend out to catch a cab. By this time I'm so out there that signing my bar tab is way hard. Somehow we end up in a cab.

On the way home in the cab I am working darn hard not to be ill. You haven't struggled until you've tried to keep from being violently sick in a taxi cab. I succeed in my endeavor, barely. I believe I was sick immediately upon exiting the cab but I wouldn't swear to it because my memory and imagination overlap even when I'm sober, let alone when I'm totally drunk off my ass. My friend manages to get me to my apartment (I have no idea how.) Then it is time to pray to the porcelain god. Then I pray again. This continues for a couple of hours I think. My friend heads for home herself because it isn't as if watching me be ill is a spectator sport. Actually, she waited until she was sure I was ok which was more than nice of her.

Finally I've managed to get to the point where I'm not ill anymore and head to bed. I wake up at 9 in the morning and notice first that I'm still drunk. I notice the sun is shining and promptly fall back asleep. I next fully wake up at 3pm. It is now snowing outside. Oh yeah, I'm still drunk. I doze until 4pm. I'm still drunk. I fall asleep until 6 pm when I awaken and realize that I'm sober. Oh yeah, nothing like wasting an entire Saturday. I shower, watch a dvd or two and head to bed at 12:30am or so. I sleep in until noon on Sunday too. Not only did I waste Saturday, I'm also going to waste a good chunk of Sunday. I finally head out to get some food that afternoon. I eat a bit and pretty much do a whole lot of nothing.

Monday rolls around. Unfortunately my mountain bike is still at work from when I rode in Friday morning. I don't feel like taking the bus so I decide to jog in. That will get any lingering effects out of my system. Well, it did at that. I can't believe how much pain I was in. All of my internals were bruised from my Friday night abuse. I was more than a little low on energy to be jogging since I'd only eaten a couple of roast beef sandwiches in the last 2 1/2 days. No pain no gain they always say.

Anyways, long rambling story, but the original point of me starting this was to rail about Black Orchids. It turns out the damn things weren't mixed drinks. They were mixed alcohol + alcohol + alcohol + alcohol. One of those and I should have been done. If I'd known what they were I definitely would not have had three of them. I haven't been that drunk since before I was old enough to be legally drinking. I hadn't planned on ever getting that drunk again in my life. The only positive thing is they were so hardcore that my bartab was less than $50 even though I bought other people a number of drinks. I've never heard of getting that drunk on a mere 4 drinks.