(I urge everyone to drink responsibly, i.e. in no way similar to how I used to. It hurts. But if you do, make it count.)
There’s plenty of drinking nights that I regret, ‘though I can’t always say exactly what, because I don’t remember most of them. Yep, I black out. Or used to, I guess. Maybe it’s because I’m an alcoholic, or a binge drinker or because I was trying to self medicate my way through my problems. Though my excessive drinking DID reveal one thing to me (well, not to me, but to my friends who later told me): my blacked out self was everything my sober self wanted to be.
The blacked out version of me is mostly coherent, able to type fairly well and seemingly still able to function like a normal human being. I’m not proud of this, just thankful that I don’t go completely out of my mind when I drink that much. That being said, my night in Corvallis may have been the funniest, scariest and most exciting night of my life. I was 22, working for the WSU baseball team, and on my first road trip to central Oregon. I’m thinking this was in 2002. Maybe 2001.
The first thing any of us think about after a road trip is food. For me, while a student manager for the WSU baseball team, my first job was always laundry. Always, always laundry. This included washing every piece of athletic gear the guys had, scrubbing grass and dirt stains out of uniforms and folding them nicely, by number, either in their lockers or while on road trips, in my hotel room. My duties also included helping with practice, filming games and handling equipment issues, but that stuff was easy and didn’t make much time. Laundry was the bore.
My first night in Corvallis wasn’t any different. The team and I had left directly after practice for OSU and because I hadn’t had time to wash before we left, my first duty was to round up laundry and get it washed in time for the next day’s wake up call. Whatever hotel we stayed at was nice enough to shuttle me to a local laundromat, where I spent three hours scrubbing, washing and folding until I had everything packed back up in three equipment bags. Quick stop at the hotel room to drop off the bags and change, and my night was ready to begin.
I dressed differently back then. At 175 lbs, anything and everything fit me. Fitted, boot-cut slacks, polo shirt with a little lycra to give it some curve and hot-at-the-time black Doc Marten lace ups with black and white stitching off-center. It was the early 00s, and I looked good. Hair? Pretty much the same. Let’s just call that look timeless.
So maybe I was overdressed, but I had no idea because that’s what I always looked like. Dive bar, club, party, you name it, I always wore some combination of boot-cut pants and a fitted shirt with varying amounts of buttons. Call me preppy, call me metrosexual, call me whatever you want, but I looked awesome.
My first stop of the night was a decent-looking, Hawaiian-themed bar about a mile off campus. A short walk from my hotel (a short walk EAST), the bar had dining tables, a stage, pool tables and dart boards. For a divey bar just outside a huge college town, it was a jackpot. Perfect place for me to have some dinner and head back to rest up for our 9am wake up call. And then the owner arrived. He was huge, he said he was Samoan and he said he LOVED WSU people. Came in and spent TONS on drinks before and after games, he crowed. Tons? Well, this wasn’t my drinking night, but I’d hate to disappoint…(I’d long been trained that large, olive-skinned island-looking people are very scary and could break me in half, mostly because I grew up with a bunch of guys who looked and acted like Sunny Thaper and then ended up in weekly police reports. Lesson: be nice, do what they say. And smile. It’s almost always a guaranteed good time.)
I ordered my first double Red Bull and vodka. That’s all I drank at the time, save for a few wind-down type drinks with cranberry and vodka. Though I didn’t accept it at the time, energy drinks mixed with alcohol make you friggin’ nuts. If you’ve never experienced it, imagine being completely hammered while completely awake. You THINK you know what’s going on until you try to do anything beyond standing or sitting and then you’re screwed.
The bartender loved me. Though she wasn’t related to the owner, she was the same nationality (I think, anyway) and she also loved WSU people. My dinner was soon up, I scarfed it, and went back to drinking my now third double red bull and vodka.
And then the bartender’s girlfriends showed up. Drunk. Looking for someone to dance with.
I said yes.
To be continued…
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