anatomy of a hangover

We went out with some friends on Friday night. Both of us had a horrible week at work and what we needed was to blow off some steam. Boy, did we.

I awoke on Saturday morning feeling fine. I made some coffee, walked the dog and even mowed the lawn. After mowing the lawn I realized that I wasn't feeling so fresh, so I made some breakfast and watched TV on the couch. That's when it hit me: I had a killer hangover coming on. Uh oh.

The only commitment we had for the daytime was to drop off our car for service. When Steven woke up and got ready for us to leave, I was feeling lousy, but I could manage to drop off the car and he wanted to get some lunch and look for a pair of jeans. By the time we arrived at the car place I was feeling pretty awful from the car ride. We dropped off the car and set out in our other car for lunch. At this point, just the movement from the car was making me want to throw up, but leaning my seat back wasn't working because I had drank so much water that morning and it was now all sloshing around in my stomach and making things worse. I figured once we got to the (outdoor) restaurant, I'd start feeling better.

I suffered through Steven's jean-buying session (which, gotta love him, was very quick), but by the time we sat down at the restaurant I was in terrible shape. The last thing I wanted was food, and everything on the menu turned my stomach. I ordered a cocktail in the hopes that the "hair of the dog" myth would pay off. It didn't. My drink was so sweet and syrupy. Yuck. I ordered the smallest thing on the menu that I could think of and when it arrived I couldn't even look at it. I asked Steven if it would be bad if I put my head down on the table. He said it would be. For what seemed like hours (but was in reality a quick lunch) I suffered and paid the price for my previous evening's overindulgence. On the walk back to the car from lunch I had the familiar signs of someone who is going to vomit: sweaty skin and that awful salty taste in my mouth. I really wanted to throw up and remove whatever was in my stomach that was giving me so many problems. One secret about me is that I rarely throw up. I'm not sure why, but my body refuses to throw up. I pretty much knew that I wasn't going to actually puke, but I was hoping that maybe my body would show some pity for me and just get it over with. Nope.

The ride home from lunch was even more awful than the ride there. As soon as we pulled into our driveway I launched out of the car and into bed. The only thing that got me out of bed was an even more intense urge to throw up, so I got a bucket and went back to bed. My morning of hangover agony had made me extremely tired, so I fell asleep quickly and slept the sleep of the dead.

Four hours later I woke up feeling completely refreshed and boy was I hungry. Something deep inside me told me to take my lunch with me at lunchtime when the waitress noticed I hadn't eaten anything. Nothing made me more excited than eating my leftover lunch after my afternoon nap. From that point on I was in pretty good shape.

So, the moral here is this: have fun when drinking, but if you realize that you're having too much fun, think of me and my day from hell. Remember: you will have to pay the next day. And pay hard.