The Real Hangover

Most people complain about their hangovers, commiserating with co-workers about its negative effects on their body and overall lack of productivity as a result of superfluous consumption. I for one revel in it. I take it for all its glory. The subtle and often times less subtle reminders throughout the morning hours that you made multiple mistakes on top of one another during the day prior, resorting back to your college day roots. The pain is there, the regret is ever prevalent, and the cold sweats make you soberly aware that something is simply not right on the inside.

Despite what we all wish was true, a real hangover is not like the movie. Things go wrong and they usually dont get better until a full, non intoxicated night of sleep. The only part that is accurate about that movie is the lack of memory and the ruined clothing. 

Waking up hurts, and your wipe the crust forming under your eyelids. This was due to the fact your slept in your contacts for the third night in a row out of sheer laziness to take the 24 seconds needed to remove them before sleeping. You rationalize this by the fact that you had "better things to do," like passing out, having another Stella Artois and making sure the Red Sox game is Tevo'd tomorrow, since you are already predicting an early sleep on the following night. You stroll heavily to the bathroom as your overactive and overfull bladder is in need a immediate release, but yet the flow is as slow as you are to allow it to happen. You can physically hear your steps as your bare feet slap against the wood floor, as it creaks and sound louder than silverware being dropped on linoleum floors.

You're roommate is in the kitchen after a very well rested evening cooking up breakfast and lunch at the same time looking like chef morimoto dicing up peppers with his eyes closed. Meanwhile you enter the kitchen with your eyes close by force not choice and blindly dump ground coffee into the tea kettle instead of the french press. You decide eating is not a possibility and would run the risk of making you tardy for work since you will be taking an extra 15 minutes to instantly remove the consumed food through the opposite orifice. Packing up your bag for work you dont even double check to make sure you have the eleven thousand key cards needed to enter the office, nor to make sure your personal computer is charge (which it fucking isn't) of course. Rolling down the stairs and out the door, looking like Robert Downey Jr after his third relapse and stumbling into the open air, which is the first and probably only relief you will feel all day. The cold wet air hits you in the face and you realize that you underestimated the ability for New England to change from 75 degrees one day to 4 degrees the next. Its cold.


Subways move too low, people move to fast. The entry ways are crowded and people look far too awake in comparison to your zombie like state. You feel that everyone is staring at your as we compulsively check your breath for the stench of whiskey and orange juice, hoping that it has since subsided from the taste that you woke up with. It hasn't, people can tell as it pours not from your breath but from the overactive sweat glands ever present throughout your entire body. Shame. You fear conversation and avoid eye contact with anyone. You start thinking about the day prior and the laundry list of events that inapropriately unfolded throughout the arduous day. Morning cocktails, 5 layer nachos, entering cheescake factory, acquiring waitresses phone number, leaving the factory, arriving home, passing out, waking up to call from cheescake factor waitress, she comes over. Watch the Celtics game, eat more nachos, drink beer, buy more beer, make out, find out her age, make out some more, bed, history. At no point did you think that a harmless drunken game of "high five acquisition would lead to you spending the evening with a Northeastern sophmore being questioned about your watch that could pay for an entire semester. Be careful with high five acquisition - one minute you are high-fiving 6 women with an average age of 73, and the next your are ID'ing the girl you are about to sleep with.

The day carries onward as does the hangover. There are glimpses of hope that present themselves throughout the morning, but they are brief an innocuous towards rectifying the situation. You are short in breath and your reflexes are about as "on point" as a 62 year old obese man with parkinsons disease. Sitting in your desk contemplating 101 different reasons to tell your boss you have to leave, and deciding each one of them is completely inadequate. There is not enough Keurig coffee and advil in the world to help, unless of course and IV was rolled over dripping Italian roast and sugar into the bloodstream, which in itself would only offer a temporary reprieve from your suffering.

This is the real hangover. This lasts all day, and constantly reminds you of the shortcomings that took place over the weekend, for most people. For me, the pain is a gentle solute to the achievements of the weekend. I am still standing, I still have my job, my friends dont hate me and I STILL GOT IT. I can still close on a wild Sunday afternoon at cheesecake factory with a girl who is a full standard deviation close to the age of my little sister than she is to me.

You're welcome.