The horrible incident

Just in time for Halloween, it’s a bone-chilling true-life story you won’t soon forget…

Let me start by saying that generally speaking, Saturday was a great day.  I got to spend time with family, friends old and new and, until a point…had a blast.  However, the event that occurred in the wee hours of the morning has marred the joy and revelry of the early parts of the day, and shall henceforth be known as “The Horrible Incident“.

This is a horrifying tale of over-consumption and abuse, wanton disregard for personal limits and common sense, and the stomach-churning results of not using your effing brain when it comes to drinking.  It is not a story for the faint of heart, the weak of stomach, and I wouldn’t read this while eating lunch if I were you.  All the names have been changed to protect everyone involved from being associated with The Horrible Incident.  There is no happy ending.  You have been warned.

After several other parties earlier in the day, I got a late text from my buddy Pete saying “Party at Dirk’s!  You should bring that vodka!” (referring to the Sobieski vodka I just reviewed).  So I swung by the liquor store just before it closed, scooped up a handle of the Sobieski and headed to the party.  In retrospect, I should have just gone home and punched myself in the neck until I passed out.

I arrived to see most of the regular crew, already engaged in drinking games and alcohol-based fun.  Feels like home, I thought.  But there were some strangers there.  Strangers to me, anyway.  Turns out they were friends of a friend, no big deal, they seemed like decent people and were plenty friendly.  A few weren’t drinkers, and Drys always set off a few red flags with me, but as I said they were good people and in the end I should have kept a closer eye on the drinkers rather than the Drys.

I quickly made my “hello” rounds through the group and made my way to the kitchen to get to drinkin’.  Actually, first I was treated to a delicious sangria by Pete’s ladyfriend, THEN I made my way to the kitchen to mix something up.  Let me just skip over some of the boring parts here: I drank, we made shots and drank more, played drinking games, yadda yadda yadda.  Fun to experience, but not terribly interesting to read about, amirite?

So there’s this one dude, one of these newbs that I didn’t know.  He first comes up while I’m making my first drink.  He starts asking me what I’m making, what is that vodka, blah blah blah.  I know his game, he’s tired of drinking beer all night and wants something else.  I can’t blame him for that and hell, I brought the handle to share with everyone.  I invite him to partake of my vodka, and he timidly accepts.  I mean shit this is a party, I’m always down for meeting new people and everyone having a good time, and what’s a little social lubricant between good people getting acquainted, right?  Foolish.

So the evening goes on, we play games and make shots, and it seems that every time we’re making another round, this guy (we’ll call him Oscar) is right there ready to take another.  The rest of the shot-taking crowd changes as different people are moving around the room, but this guy is there every time.  Then we start playing a drinking game.  You know how when you’re playing a game where you have to drink for 5 seconds or 20 seconds, most people kind of slooowww drink for that time period so they don’t drink too much?  Not Oscar.  Oscar is CHUGGING HARD every time he has to drink, and this particular game has some pretty long drinking times.  He’s even making up one-on-one drinking games between the main games.  It’s clear he’s going to be wrecked soon.  Hey, as far as I’m concerned that’s his prerogative, he’s an adult and his friends are there to give him a ride if he needs one, so I assume he is aware (as most full-grown humans are) of how much they can safely drink.  Stupid.

So we’re playing the game (Taboo modified to include drinking, if you must know) and he’s lying on the floor.  At least he’s not drinking any more, and these new kids are into the game and good people as far as I can tell.  Oscar rolls around every minute or so, so he’s not passed out yet, but he’s clearly trashed.  He’s ignorable, which is what you hope for in situations like these.  Eventually, he rolls around so that he’s propped up on his elbows.  I have a pretty good hunch as to what’s happening now, and it doesn’t take long to confirm.  Dude is (quietly) yarfing all over Dirk’s carpet.  Once it’s noticed, people try to haul him into the bathroom so he can finish his business.  It’s clear when they try to help him up that he’s basically dead weight, no effort on his part to walk or move, which is kind of a bad sign.  It still didn’t prepare us for the horrors to come.

This will soon take on a whole new meaning for you…

So he’s in the bathroom, presumably puking his toenails up (though still pretty quietly, surprisingly) and we make small talk while we wait for those helping him to come back and get things cranked back up again while he pukes/sleeps it off.  So far, it’s pretty standard stuff we’ve all had to deal with at one point or another.  A few brave souls clean up his vomit from the carpet (I personally can’t do that, the smell of it just makes me want to puke for days).

Then Dirk comes out of the bathroom…

“So…does anyone know what the signs of alcohol poisoning are?”

Aww hell.  This is not a conversation anyone wants to have.  People offer up a few ideas…puking for hours on end, shaking, turning blue, unable to speak or hold conversation, things like that.  Then Dirk drops the bomb…

“How about when someone shits themselves?”

“………”

No.   NO.  No WAY did this guy just SHIT HIS GROWN-MAN DRAWERS within 45 mins of being identifiably hammered.  No WAY did this guy crap his frigging pants at a party where he didn’t know over 75% of the people there.  No WAY is there a grown-ass man sitting in his own crap-filled pantaloons less than 20 feet from us (this is a 1-bedroom/1-bathroom apartment).

We are, understandably, awe-struck.  Shell-shocked.  Befuddled and unsure of how to react.  This is…The Horrible Incident.

And now, we have to address the possibility that he does have alcohol poisoning.  That his idiot consumption has put his health in danger and we may have to act on that.  After a good bit of haggling back and forth and a few brave souls interacting with him, we ascertain that while he’s not identifiably suffering from alcohol poisoning right now, he is seriously effed up.

As the heroes among us took care of Oscar, his compatriots enlighten us…

“Oh yeah, he thinks he can drink a lot but he’s really a lightweight”

“Yeah, he tries to drink a lot to impress people, but he’s a softie”

…and then the kicker

“Yeah, he’s done stuff like this before.  One time he stopped breathing, and someone had to give him mouth-to-mouth…he was okay though”

Holy shit! So not only did this colossal dickhead with a death-wish not learn from drinking like an asshole, but his friends didn’t learn that…hey, this guy drinks so much that he puts himself in serious life-threatening danger and maybe when we see him start to over-consume, we should maybe slow or stop him from possibly killing himself (or at the least prevent him from taking a giant stinky dump in his effing cargo shorts).

So let me wrap up the remainder of the night for you: Oscar was fed water (which he promptly threw up over and over) and sat in his unacknowledged shit-filled pants (he seriously never mentioned it or cared or did a damn thing to clean himself up the entire time) for the rest of the night, was eventually dragged out to the balcony (hey, there was only one bathroom and people had been drinking and needed to piss, damnit) to continue puking.  It stank like unholy hell when he crossed through the room.  He later dragged his nasty ass all over the apartment (apparently on the floor, bathroom counter-top, and briefly on the couch, despite numerous protests) and his friends finally got around to grabbing a few trash bags and driving him home.  The rest of us sat, flabbergasted at the events of the evening.

So, what did we learn from this event?

1. KNOW YOUR FREAKING LIMITS.  If you want to drink yourself to death, do it somewhere else, you will only embarrass yourself and make people who don’t know you hate you.

2. WATCH OUT FOR YOUR FRIENDS. If you have a friend you know sometimes drinks too much, don’t let them do it in front of a group of people they barely know.

3. NOBODY IS EVER IMPRESSED WITH HOW MUCH YOU DRINK.  You can almost never drink as much as you think you can, and there’s no prize for being the drunkest most pukeingest trouser-crapping shit-smeared douchetard at a party.  Pants-shitting nets you more negative points than you can count.

4. HEROS ARE AMONG US.  They are here, taking care of every stupid drunk shittard and cleaning up after every wasted moron out there.  You may have never known that your friends were capable of such feats of heroism, but a chosen few of them are.  God Bless them.

5. DIRK AND HIS LADYFRIEND WILL NOT BE HOSTING ANY PARTIES ANYTIME SOON.  I’m no rocket surgeon, but once someone craps themselves from drinking in my place and doesn’t even care enough to clean their own ass, I’d have to take a break to reassess my beliefs on the common decency of humankind and decide whether or not I’d just want to segregate myself from society altogether.  Forever.

This is a cautionary tale, please read it in full and take heed the next time you decide to get shithoused in a stranger’s home.  Imagine this story being about you, and everyone knowing that, and that may just prevent you from making a worldwide asshole out of yourself.  Don’t be this guy.