My Manifesto

We’ve all been there before: you wake up to the promise of another beautiful day; the sun is shining brightly, birds are singing cheerfully, the flowers shimmer with dew, and…

“OH SHIT! WHAT THE FUCK DID I DO LAST NIGHT?”

A perfectly fine morning is quickly soured as a shot of adrenaline courses through your veins as you struggle to piece together the jigsaw puzzle that was ‘Last Night’.

Oh yes, Last Night. You might have had a litte too much to drink last night.

Whether you were gin-soaked, beer-stained or whiskey-fueled, the train that is your life went off the tracks somewhere around 1am.

It’s a horrifying feeling; your heart detatches itself and plummets straight into the acidic remains of your stomach. The reality of your actions dive-bombs you like a blood-starved buzzard. Your brain, now sporting a few million less brain cells, races to recreate the scene, taking inventory of your actions (at least the ones you can remember), what damage was done and who was witness to the debacle.

“How can I play this off?”

“Is it as bad as I think it is?”

“Just how screwed am I?”

“Do I still have friends?”

“Do I still have a job?”

and finally, that one universal thought…

“FUCK!”

Sounds familiar?

Ladies and gentleman, welcome to the time-honored tradition that is The Drinker’s Remorse. If you tipple, you eventually must pay the piper. Some of us may be more familiar with it than others. Some may fall victim on a regular basis, whilst others have learned their lessons (and limits) over the years. But, everybody has had at least one perfectly good hangover ruined by the simple act of remembering, or as it may, not being able to remember.

Part of the ‘fun’ with disasters like these are that they manifest themselves in a variety of ways, like waves crashing on a beach. Sometimes it all comes back in well-timed sets, other times it’s a tsunami that appears from nowhere. Sometimes what looks like a monster turns out to be a pussycat, whereas what might have been an easy ride ends up closing out on you, burying you into a bed of rocks and leaving permanent scars.

The Drinker’s Remorse is funny like that. And, to paraphrase Sir Charles Barkley, “by funny, I mean stupid.” It comes in many wicked variations and assumes various aberrations. Quite frankly, she’s a sneaky knife-wielding bitch who’ll cut you and not think twice about it before lifting your wallet on her way out the door.

You’re all familiar with the garden variety. You rise from an alcohol-induced hibernation and within a few minutes, last night’s transgressions come flooding back along with a certain emotion known as panic. You take a few minutes to sort it out and eventually zero in on the damage and its repercussions.

Quite often, the gaffe involves talking shit about somebody, but just as often it proves to be an embarrassing admission brought on by nature’s most popular truth serum.

“Dude, you know I’m not gay, but I really wish I had your butt. Seriously, you’ve got a great ass. Do you do a lot of squats? Maybe I’m not doing enough. What’s your butt routine?”

“I wet the bed until I was in the 10th grade.”

“I know she’s my cousin, but I think she’s hot. I mean, look at her!”

Then, it’s time for the unenviable task of putting the genie back in the bottle. (Obviously an empty bottle judging by the way you drank last night) If you’re lucky, the worst injustices you will suffer is a mild sprain to your ego, some serious humiliation and maybe a tongue-lashing or two after your apologies and admissions of guilt.

Hopefully, after it’s all said and done, you’re free to properly tend to your hangover and plot your next night of debauchery. Rinse and repeat.

The proliferation of cell phones and PDAs have only aided in the feeding of this monster. Phone calls, both from the night of and the day after, are a crucial component in The Drinker’s Remorse. Cruelly, they can both the cause of and the cure to your late-night follies.

Unfortunately for you, 96% of the time, it’s the cause.

There are those mornings when you wake up feeling fine. Last night may have gotten a bit crazy, but you had a fantastic time. Or, at least you thought so, until you check your cell.

There, like a snake lying in the tall grss, are a couple of voicemails waiting to inflict pain upon you.

Maybe the first is from your better half, who is conspicuously absent from your bed, and by the tone of his/her voice, is none too pleased.

“What the fuck were you thinking? I can’t believe you! I expect that kind of shit when you’re around your idiot buddies, but in front of my friends, co-workers and my parents?! I’m so fucking embarrassed! *pause* Call me when you get this. We need to talk.”

That spirit-raising gem is immediately followed by another, this from a friend calling to lend his ’support’.

“Dude, nice going last night! I’ve never seen anything quite like that before. I hope you don’t have any scars. *laugh* You’re an idiot. What the fuck were you thinking? Call me after the missus finishes ripping you a new one. *laugh* Dumbass!”

‘What the fuck were you thinking’, indeed. You’d probably had felt much better if you hadn’t checked those damned messages.

Fucking technology. Maybe Ted Kaczynski was onto something after all. But, alas, you’ve heard the damage and now you’re knee-deep in the Reconstruction of your Life courtesy of the atomic (jager) bomb you detonated eleven hours ago.

If we’re talking about phones, we surely can’t forget its evil cousin — text messaging. God forbid there be actual evidence of your crime(s) in text form. Especially if you’re a ‘public employee’ – all your phone records are open to public scrutiny under the Freedom of Information Act.

Like brown is the new black, DrunkTexting is the 21st Century Drunk Dialing. Not that Drunk Dialing will ever fall out of vogue, but those of you who like to let your fingers do the walking after a few cocktails face yet another potential pitfall. (You poor bastards know who you are)

The redeeming value of this technology is that it offers you a quicker method of retracing last night’s steps. When relying on a memory ravaged by alcohol, the facts aren’t always so quickly forthcoming. But with the aid of your cell phone, you can immediately check the incoming and outgoing traffic during your period of extreme inebriation. Plus, lucky you, texting gives you a coward’s way of contacting people should your embarrassment get the best of you.

Unfortunately, things can get tricky. Mostly, because you made them that way. The parties involved can’t always be immediately contacted. All the relevant information isn’t easily recalled. Apologies aren’t always accepted. And, in the more serious scenarios, there may be warrants issued for your arrest.

Just like there are levels of drunkenness, there exist proportional levels of The Drinker’s Remorse…

Class A: As previously discussed, there are no despicable actions involved. You merely came down with a non-terminal case of verbal diarrhea. You immediately remember everything you with you never said, without any outside help.

Class B: Marginally worse than Class A. The next day, you vaguely recall telling your girlfriend that her dress didn’t make her look fat as much as it made her look like a man. But, the specifics are hazy and you need help figuring out which particular words were used and in what order.

Class C: You’ve not even out of bed and you know you’ve done something mind-bogglingly embarassing. You can remember a good chunk of the night, such as riding home on the roof of your friend’s car, and then the subsequent skinny dipping. Unfortunately, you only remember taking all those compromising pictures after your friends remind you with the actual proof.

Class D: The damage done by the drink is substantial. So much, that while you vaguely remember dropping your pants in the middle of that crowded Irish pub, you have absolutely no recollection of urinating on your “good-for-nothing piece-of-shit phone, but it doesn’t matter because I bought the insurance” in the middle of the street. Even a still-moist Nokia does nothing to stoke the memory.

Class E: While you can feel the severe dent you put in your cranium, you feel no shame because you recollect absolutely nothing. Even after your friends describe how you did a vigorous rendition of the “Dong Dance” in front of your high school friend Mary, you remember nothing. And, you certainly have absolutely no recollection of groping and making out with her in front of her older brother later that night. Sadly, the fact that you don’t remember doesn’t seem to comfort him one bit.

In this case, it may be time to google the phrase “Korsakoff’s syndrome”.

Remember kids, you can only say you’re sorry so many times before it loses all meaning.