Long Distance Dedication

Ok, I've had a request so I'll postpone part II of my life story (such as it is) and tell you the story of going to a jr. HS dance drunk. Let me start off with this, it seems everyone in the 80's fit neatly into a little click such as "Jock", "Geek" ,"Burnout", etc. For some reason that just didn't seem to be the case for me. I hung out with some nerds, played a little D&D, smoked cigarettes and played a little baseball and soccer and was in drama club. So as you can see I was all over the place. In HS I spent alot of time hanging out in the school's smoking area (yes it was even sanctioned) playing hacky sack with the metal heads but I didn't listen to enough metal to be a real part of that group. I'll probably blog more about this later, but for now back to the story. I was in 8th or 9th grade (our Jr HS went through 9th grade) when it happened. Me and my friend Chance (yes, his real name) thought it might be fun to get a buzz going for the dance coming up that weekend. He stole 4 beers from his older brother's fridge and stashed them in the woods near the school a few days before the dance. The day of the dance we met at my house, chance convinced me that 4 beers wasn't likely to do the job (we were teenagers in NH, drinking started early) so we decided to rifle through my Mom's liquor cabinet. Now my Mom has never been much of a drinker so I probably could have swiped a bottle of anything besides the Bailey's and been safe, but I was trying to be cautious when I came up with an idea. I grabbed a large thermos bottle and Chance and I started adding a little bit of everything in the cabinet. Now let's just say my Mom had ecclectic taste in alcohol, we had a little rum, a little vodka, a little vermouth, a little midori, a little bailey's, a little Johnny Walker...just thinking about it makes me a little bit queasy. We grabbed a couple of plastic cups, stashed our rocket fuel in Chance's backpack and off we went making the walk to the dance. We got to the woods by the school about an hour or so before the dance and off we went on our misadventure.

We started off easy slugging back a couple of beers (something lovely I'm sure like Knickerbocker or Hamm's) and once we dealt with those it was on to the hard stuff. I opened the top of the thermos and heard a mild hiss as the vacuum seal was broken...I swear I must have seen a bit of gentle steam in the form of a skull and crossbones rise from the open mouth of the container...the smell of what was inside was pungent to say the least and I think both Chance and I understood the gravity of what we were about to undertake.

We poured ourselves a nice full cup of this concoction which was so vile it could easily be used on an episode of Fear Factor. Wasting no time we treated it like nasty medicine and slugged it down...ugghh...gross...looking into the thermos we saw there was still more in the container. We poured ourselves another dose...looked each other in the eye to work up the courage and BAM...down the hatch. We sat there for a moment and tried to get our barings. Before we left Chance served up the Coup de Grace, he pulled out a tube of Auquafresh from his backpack, "Here, eat some of this, it'll mask your breath" Damn, it's a wonder I didn't hurl right then and there. I think our timing must have been impeccable because nobody at the ticket table noticed anything wrong as we paid and entered. My guess is nothing really kicked in until we got inside into the dark gymnasium where we could fade into the darkness.

Imagine, 13 years old, drunk and being subjected to "C'Mon Eileen" and "Land Down Under"...it wasn't long before our heads were spinning.

I don't know how we got away with it, but we did. I was swaying pretty hard before long and I must have smelled like a minty distillery. At one point Chance even talked to the principal of the school.

We spent the night at Chance's house and managed to avoid adult contact while there. The next morning we woke up late but really none the worse for wear. I think faced with the same amount of liqour today I would probably pass out (I've become a lightweight in my post college days) but somehow neither one of us got sick or drew enough attention to ourselves to get caught. And to be honest I never showed up to another school function in that condition again, even in HS. I guess I just got it out of the way early.