As my college friends and I sat in the lounge of our dormitory, drinking beers, watching an episode of, "The Simpsons," with no women anywhere, I recall that we would half-jokingly say to each other, "These are the best years of our lives." Now, I think that we would all agree that those were hardly the, "best," years of our lives. But I can say that they were the most care-free. I lived on campus for all four years of school and I never had to worry about paying rent or utilities. Nor did I have to worry about feeding myself. The biggest thing that I had to concern myself with was keeping my grades up, paying back all of those student loans when I graduated, and most of all, having a good time. Woo!
There's one particular story that comes to mind where I had a little too much of a good time. However, before I get into that story, I have to mention that I'm going to break yet another rule. For this week's installment, I will be using the person's actual name. An old and dear friend of mine named Chris Margeson. Since he has suggested that I tell this story, I don't think he'll mind. (If not he can sue me for all the proceeds that I haul in from this week's blog.) Also, the story really just doesn't work without his name. (Well, it may still not work but that's for me to decide)
So one night, Chris and I were invited to attend a couple of parties. One was a Frat party (I know I know) and the other was a friend of ours in the Mechanical Engineering department. In my defense, the invitation to the Frat party was more a friend of Chris' than mine. But suffice it to say, we weren't interested to going to that one. So we spent most of the night at the super-cool Mech E party. Because everyone knows that the engineers really know how to party.
The night began with the host of the party making us these lovely drinks known as White Russians. They are made up of Vodka, Kahlua, and Milk. I can also tell you that they are delicious. Especially to a 20 year old who hadn't done a lot of drinking at this point in his life. So I chose to have another...and another...and another.
I was actually doing very well at this point but then Chris stated that we should make an appearance at the Frat party. It would have been very rude not to show up. So I decided what the hell. We walked over to the party, stayed for about 15 or 20 minutes, and then headed back to the party with our actual friends.
Now here's where I have to give you a little bit of background on my friend Chris. In High School, he ran on the track team. Apparently, he was pretty good but had no interest in pursuing it in college. Which is perfectly understandable. It takes a lot of work to be a good student and you don't need the stress of trying to be an athlete as well. The thing is, he clearly enjoyed his athletic days. This was obvious because every time he got a a few drinks in him, he would challenge people to a race. (Which I guess is a lot better than challenging people to fight. Hey, every body's a different kind of drunk)
I too have been known to have a bit of a competitive streak in me. So when this little white boy challenged me to a race I'm like, "Hell yeah." The outcome of the race isn't really important. It's not a matter of whether you win or lose but how hard you compete. Plus, I was pretty drunk.
We returned to the first party which happened to be on the 4th floor. I made it to the top of the stairs but then the exhaustion and alcohol got the better of me so I decided to have a little seat and rest while Chris went on inside. Then I realized that the room began to spin just a little bit. Next thing I knew, I was vomiting all over myself.
To show you how smart my thinking was: I thought to myself, "Hey, I just puked. And I'm getting it all over myself and the stairs. I know what I'll do. There's a huge gap in the middle of the stairs between floors. If you look down it, you can see clear to the basement. I'll just lean my head over the side and puke down in the gap. It'll be just like puking in the basement."
After that round of puking, a very cool guy was trying to be supportive. He says, "Hey man, you should get up and walk around a little bit." I say to him, "No, no, no. This is what I want you to do. I want you to find Chris Margeson." Keep in mind that this guy had absolutely no idea who the fuck I was or Chris Margeson. He repeats, "C'mon man just get up and walk around a little bit." I then say, "No, no, no...Listen to me very carefully...Find...Chris...Margeson."
He left me there to wallow in my own puke and somehow, miraculously, managed to, in fact, find Chris Margeson. I then said, "Chris. You gotta take me home man. I'm not feelin' so good." He then proceeded to help me up. As we walked down the stairs we soon discovered that my plan of strategic puking wasn't quite as successful as I had originally thought. We slipped and slided our way through all of it and made our escape.
It was also made known to me over the next few days that the sight of a 6'7" drunk guy slumped over a guy about a foot shorter than him walking across campus makes for comedic gold.
We made it home where Chris deposited me on the bathroom floor of our suite. I finished off a few more rounds of vomiting (in the toilet this time) and promptly laid down for a little nap. Some people would have called it "passing out." Let's not get caught up in semantics people.
I awoke to the greatest hangover that I've ever had in my life. I also had one of my favorite college stories ever! Granted, I know a lot of people with a lot better stories. But I think this was plenty of excitement for my comfort zone. No one got hurt; I made it home safely with all of my teeth; And there were people around me who were looking out for me. They're the same people who still give me shit for it to this day, but they did have my best interest in mind.
Today, my ideas for fun have changed somewhat. For instance, I don't enjoy any activity that involves projectile vomiting from me or anyone else. But it does feel just a little cool that I can say that I did at one point in my life. It reminds me that college wasn't always about all-night study sessions or watching every episode of, "The Simpsons," and, "Star Trek The Next Generation." There were actually one or two moments when I allowed myself to cut loose. And I think that's plenty.
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3 comments:
Great story! As one of those people who has way too many stories like that to tell, I feel confident saying that after ONE story...they all blend together. And I never feel compelled to tell any of them. So, what's the point of having so many? I guess I get to say 'been there, done that' more than some people, but at the ripe old age of 31, it just doesn't bring me that much joy to do that. I like that you had your few experiences in uber-indulgence and can cherish those for years to come. Those of us who did that almost every night can't remember any of them well enough to write it down!
I finally see where that line comes from after having heard it a few times. You never know when you're fellow man will help you. While you were at that fancy school of yours I was out in these streets hustlin'.
I would like to add to this story, seeing that, I, Chris Margeson, was there and witnessed the entire historical moment. To be honest, I really don't think Damon did all that much throwing up on himself. In fact, I'd have to say that there was very little on him. Why do I say that? As much as I like the hero of our story, I don't think I would've let him lean all over me with vomit all over his clothes. Now he did manage to get most of the stairs and walls splattered with the stuff and I do remember slipping and sliding all the way down out of the building (and getting a lot of shit the next day for having my friend smell up an entire dorm wing). Second, and more importantly, once we got to our dorm building we had to ride in an elevator to get to our suite (Anderson 7). On the 3rd floor of that same building resided a sorority (in fact, one of the more popular, i.e. greater than average number of hotties) sororities at the U of R (I know, that isn't saying much but we were engineering students after all). On our way up to the suite we landed in an elevator with a bunch of sorority sisters coming back from some mixer with a fraternity (maybe even the one we had briefly made an appearance at earlier that evening). Now I'll have to go into a little background info here: Another mutual friend who used to hang out and watch the Simpsons also lived on the 7th floor and let's call him FatHead, because that was his nickname. Anyway, he had a crush on one of the sorority sisters which he always managed to "run into" in the laundry room. There's a really amusing story about that, which I won't go into here, but needless to say, who should end up in that very same elevator? The laundry girl. Here I am, head spinning with White Russians and this very tall, very drunk, barely standing young man props himself into a corner and begins to have a rather engaging conversation for 3 floors with this girl and her sisters. Everyody was drunk, so don't get me wrong, it was definitely one of those "cool" drunk conversations that really don't make much sense but leaves everyone smiling and happy. As a casual observer to all this I was pretty impressed. Actually I'm surprised this part of the story wasn't mentioned (or maybe those brain cells were permanently destroyed). Even being totally incapacitated, Damon managed to pull off being totally in control and handled himself really well. On the flipside, if he were sober, I doubt if he would've said anything to those girls. Most likely he would've chimed in with something funny about "doing them" after they got off on their floor.
Needless to say, it's a great story, that I was going to share as the tabloids start digging into his past when he becomes a famous actor. Maybe I still will...
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