Drink Up, Boys.

I don’t drink. Well, not alcohol, anyway.

I find the reaction of people amusing when I tell them that I’m T-Total. They are always shocked and bewildered as to why I wouldn’t want to intoxicate myself with only God knows what and get so wasted that I am unable to remember what I did the night before. Oh, and then the next day have the joy of clearly seeing and feeling the remains of it floating in the thick murky depths of my toilet and clogging up the back of my burning throat.

Is it just me who doesn’t find that appealing?

And yet, I am ashamed to admit it, on Friday 16th of May, I had my first alcoholic drink in four months. The ever stylish and sophisticated, Sambucca shot.

One lead to two – which lead to five, six and seven…

It all happened over my friend‘s house where it was her and our other small friend who forced me to become susceptible to peer pressure and take a shot. Hence, I made a complete idiot of myself in front of her brother whom, after I left, remained clutching his knees to his chest, rocking slightly in the corner of the next room, muttering nonsensical utterances to himself for several hours.

I had to leave my inebriated hostess at half past eleven, because the next morning I had to be live and kicking and fresh as a daisy at 5 am to catch the 6 o’clock off Bridgend station to Paddington. When I woke up to my aggravating “techno” alarm at 5, I realised I was freezing cold and with a dead leg. These were my useful tactics to avoid nausea in the night, an open window and one foot remaining on the floor, to stop the room from spinning when you lie down. Rolling out of bed onto the rug, which cleverly conceals my nail polish stain, I stopped my alarm with my palm and managed to gradually, like a toddler learning to stand, put my feet flat on the floor, and place my hands directly in front so I was now in a rather precarious downward-facing-dog yoga position. Combined with my systematic breathing, I was able to eventually stand up straight with my arms stretched out before me like an extra from a cheap amateur zombie film (my excruciatingly bad hair and last night’s make-up all added to the effect). After wrestling my planned outfit onto my shaking body and picking myself up off the floor twice more, I grabbed my bag, fell down the stairs, brushed my teeth and left the house with my Dad in tow. The last thing I wanted was breakfast.

After admiring and falling into the new leather upholstery in First Class, I settled down in my own quiet carriage near the buffet cart (for the free tea I get when I upgrade from Standard Class – oh yeah) and near a toilet (for the inevitable reappearance of the previous night). With immense difficulty, I pulled my knees up to my chest and laid across two chairs with my jacket over my head and promptly fell asleep.

What seemed like a decade later, I felt the rocking of the train rouse me and so I peeled apart one eye and being partially blind and exceedingly hung-over, it took a moment to focus on what I was looking at. I regret this enormously. I was faced with something more horrid than I have ever seen in any horror film, more ghastly than any blood-dripping ghoul, more vile than any villainous, giant, slimy serpent with venomous fangs that pierce purely the skin of dead carcasses.

No, ladies and gentlemen, it was the flabby, wrinkled, veined and stretch-marked open thighs of an old woman sat opposite me, in a ridden-up skirt in very, VERY tight briefs.

Clearly she was a widow, because any man in his right mind would have the decency to keel over and die, as I nearly did, at that sight. When it registered what I was focussing on, I jumped and smacked my head on the table, which made my head pound and my eye sight completely deteriorate for about four seconds. Grappling with the table, I managed to heave myself up into a sitting position, and as soon as I did, this wave of nausea swept up inside and crashed down with the taste of aniseed in my dry mouth. I gave the old woman her comeuppance of scaring me witless by really putting my back into performing the greatest belch of the 21st Century.

I practically roared. It was awesome.

The truly disgusted facial expression she pulled in her seat one metre away was reward enough for my efforts and almost enough to cover the image of her undergarment monstrosity that swam incessantly through my thoughts. Unfortunately, the clench of my stomach didn’t cease and I found that then was a better time than any to leg it to the toilet to violently throw up the night before.

Now, I’m not an angry and aggressive person (…), but when I’m being sick, is it too much to ask to have some privacy?

Obviously, it is, according to some arrogant, self-righteous idiot who was constantly trying to open the door and slamming his fist against the door shouting obscenities at me in an horrendously Welsh accent. Now, as I mentioned above, I’m not angry or aggressive *cough cough*, so I decided to ignore it as I saw my Subway Melt, toasted, extra cheese, with Barbecue sauce again. But as I made my way onto the McFlurry dessert, quite frankly, I had had enough. I mean, come on, has this society deteriorated so much so that someone can’t puke in privacy?

And so, to his relentless ranting I replied -

“OI MATE! ARE THERE NO OTHER TOILETS ON THIS TRAIN?!” and proceeded to bang the door back and tell him in no uncertain terms where would be a better place to shove his fist in his body than slam it on the door because I was going to stay in that toilet for longer now just to spite him. Of course, being the mature and refined Cardiff City supporter (the FA Cup Final was in Wembley that day) that he was, he mimicked what I had shouted in a girly, childish manner and told me to get off my high horse, to which I replied that I would get off my high horse as soon as he learnt to spell it. This set him off again, shouting and banging, so I finished up throwing up, wiped my face and checked my hair and swung open the door to see him in his 4ft, distorted red faced glory mid-shout in his blue City nylon knock-off. He was hopping from one Adidas to the other in his catalogue stonewashed jeans with “BLUES” tattooed on the inside of his arm. Well, as you can tell, I fell head over heels for him immediately.

In my blue stiletto’s that I was wearing, I reached a staggering 5ft 10”, and so his facial expression almost ( but not quite) managed to succeed the gross old woman’s face in the comedy stakes. His mouth dropped and eyes widened as they stared up at me, for I was a good shoulders, neck and head taller than he was. I took the opportunity of his stunned silence to stagger away but paused long enough to hear him, on entering the toilet, react to the gift of vomit I’d left waiting for him.

And so, as I returned to my seat and the grotesque old woman, I stared out of the window and began to think. That first drink you have one evening, is like the first month of a new relationship. You are hopeful and prepared for a good time, continuously telling yourself in your ecstatic delusion that this time, it’ll be different, you won’t end up with a splitting headache because this time you’ll drink a pint of water before bed, or a broken heart because this time you won’t be so stupid as to fall in love. Before you loose control of your tongue and actions and everything becomes hazy, before the arguments begin when you’re in the honeymoon period, and you believe that things will change. Yet, the morning after or four months down the line, in both instances, you only end up with the bad memories and a reputation and you realise that the bitter anger you feel is simply at your own foolishness.

In light of these revelations, I’m not drinking again.

S.E.M