Oh fine then.....
I grew up in a completely teetotaling household, my mother's doing. I have no idea what led to her pure hatred of all things alcoholic, but it must have been a doozy. So naturally, one of the bucket list items for college was "get totally fubar."
The opportunity finally arose spring semester when one of my frat brothers threw a kegger. I have never been a beer fan, never got accustomed to the taste or the smell. But wine? Gimme. Mixed drinks? Nummers! So a bunch of us decided that rather than indulge in tapping a keg, we'd make a batch of screwdrivers and enjoy..... And we did. What I remember is (a) we couldn't leave for the party until the end of "Shane" ... Yes, one of my drinking pals learned that the old Alan Ladd western was going to be on that night and insisted that we watch it. To this day, I cannot stand that movie... and I mock it often by saying, "Come back, Shane! Come back!"; (b) about 2:00 AM, I ran into another frat buddy who inquired about my roommate -- my former one, only he didn't know she was a former. And being rather happy-giddy at that point, I gladly spilled the tale of why she was a former roommate; (c) I attempted to play quarters, at which I sucked badly. I spilled my drink. Someone named Melissa mopped it up. It wasn't my friend Melissa Fleck (now Aller) -- I've asked, hoping to thank her, but she says it wasn't her. All told, it was a fun evening for my first blitzed experience.....
But every high has its low.... That came October 4, 1989. We were two days back from an unintended break thanks to Hurricane Hugo. I think a lot of us were overwhelmed, worn out, saddened, and just put out by everything. So my buddy Todd and I decided yep, we were gonna get good and wasted. He procured some Guinness and I landed a big honking bottle of Bacardi Silver and a 2-liter coke. I had a huge plastic cup (a milkshake tumbler) and proceeded to be my own mixologist.
Now, as you might imagine, having grown up in a teetotaling house, I had ZERO idea -- NONE -- of proper ratios of booze to chaser. Yeah -- you see where this is going, don't you. By my fourth tumblerful, it was far more rum to Coke and I was giggly stupid. Stacey was talking to a frat brother of ours from Clemson, and he'd always been really nice to me. So I chatted him up while she hit the restroom.... I remember him telling me that he'd interned at NCR that summer and I said (in a totally WT voice), "Hell, son, that's like five minutes from my house! Yeaaaaah! No shit!" Poor Stacey had to explain that I was completely drunk off my ass.
And what goes up must come down.... I came crashing down about 15 minutes later or so (I think, anyway). I came running out of Todd and Ernie's room, crying my eyes out how I'd disappointed everyone. By that point, Stacey was on the phone with Chris (the future hubs) and saying, "I'd better go, she's really wasted. Well, women have different reactions to alcohol. Y'all get pissy, we cry..." The next thing I knew, I'd changed into a satin spaghetti strapped nightgown and I was sobbing into my pillow. Todd came to the room, sat on the edge of my bed, and the exchange went like this:
T: "Nettie, you ok?"
A: "Oh God, I've disappointed you, I know it."
T: "No, no! It's been rough for all of us. Well, is there anything I can do for you?"
A: "uh huh" (nodding weakly)
T: "What's that?"
A: "MOVE!"
I've never seen anyone hit the deck so fast in my life.
And every hour on the half-hour afterwards, I worshipped at the Porcelain Shrine, making regular offerings. And just as quickly word spread around the fraternity of my shenanigans. The next morning, my frat brother Nicole (with whom I had an International Studies class) turned around with a huge grin.... "Hey Nettie...."
I was a legend. I was Frank the Tank before there was a Frank the Tank.
After that, I never got beyond a mild buzz again. I'd learned my lesson. And 26.5 years later, I still can't pass a display of Bacardi Silver without throwing up in my mouth just a little.....
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