My Morning Hangover Checklist

Rob Fox8 years ago

1. Wake up, release an extended groan that fluctuates between a whine and a grimace.

It’s basically immediate regret for even opening my eyes. I just writhe around on whatever I fell asleep on/made smell terrible with my drool, booze sweat, drunk farts, and hobo breath, barely understanding what’s happening. I’m in too much pain to articulate my feelings so instead I hope that God understands my pathetic noises and answers my prayer: an immediate return to unconsciousness.

2. Try to go back to sleep, fail.

It’s the equivalent of in a movie when a kid or whatever is in their bedroom at night, and they see a horrifying monster in the corner, so they quickly close their eyes in the hopes that it’ll be gone when they reopen them and that it’s all just a dream. But it’s not gone. It’s very real. And it murders them.

3. Desperately try to remember the last hour or so of my night, fend off an anxiety attack.

Even if I don’t “blackout” it takes me a little while to remember the final details of the night. So for the first thirty or so minutes of my day I lay around wondering if I tried to get into a fist fight with a cabbie over a “broken card reader.” Or if I made out with, gave my number to, and promised a date to some 5 who was willing but probably did not end up enjoying the pilsner and Vegas Bomb flavored kisses I gave her at 1:45 a.m. because my crippling need for validation overwhelmed me and I desperately wanted to feel wanted and thus took, literally, the first/nearest volunteer. Or, most likely of all, I sent out one to many regrettable texts, probably to an ex, and probably saying something like, “I miss we fuck.”

4. Remember the last hour or so of my night, let an appropriate level of anxiety wash over me.

Usually I’ll then remember something along the lines of me not threatening to fight the cabbie, but still getting pissed because he did try to pull some “my card reader isn’t working” bullshit. So, in response, I rattled off what I thought was a witty, sarcastic reply but was actually something like, “Oh it’s broken? Oh. Ohhhhhhh. Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh it’s broken ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.” Aside from that I mostly just spent the last part of my night standing/sitting around looking dead eyed, dumb, and creepy. And I can very much live with that.

5. Check phone.

I have to make absolutely sure I didn’t tell anyone “I miss we fuck.” But there’s still an 80% chance that, if I was drunk enough, I replied to an extra mediocre girl’s snap and now probably have like five photo or video replies plus a couple chats. (See: crippling need for validation.) I decide not to read those for a week and then low key rapid-open it all and forget anything ever happened.

And oh look I tried to watch some porn. Then I think, “I watched that, huh?”

6. Find the other remnants of my failed masturbation attempt.

There’s an unsoiled but by no means “clean” paper towel on the floor and, though my boxers are pulled up, my dick is flopped outside the fly. So I put my dick away and maybe pick up the paper towel, if I have the energy to bend over. I likely do not.

7. Start chugging water and order a pile of awful food as quickly as I can.

I like stuffed crust pizzas from Pizza Hut, in large part, I think, because it’s so heavy, and so gross (and by gross I mean fucking wonderful) that it immediately puts me into a coma, which accomplishes what I was going for way back in number 2. If I’m with someone else and they suggest anything under 600 calories I will politely ask them to leave.

8. Eat like that obese guy from “Se7en” that Kevin Spacey murdered for gluttony.

Somewhere in here I realize I deserve no better than the girls I disparaged above. If someone put a mirror in front of me I’d break down and cry.

9. Do absolutely nothing of value to humanity.

Nothing. I am an unfair burden to society at this point. I am worse than the people on welfare who use their free money buy crack from immigrants on a middle school playground that your way too far right uncle read about on USAFreedomNews.com.

10. Fall asleep. Wake up well after dinner. Watch TV for a few hours. Go to sleep for the night.

This column is going to seem way less lighthearted to me when I look back on it in forty years and think about all the things I didn’t do in life. Which will drive me to drink, but I’ll be so old that my new hangover checklist will just be: 1. Die from hangover because I’m too old to be doing this shit..