My Virgin Dance with Ethanol

Summer sessions at Cal during the summer of '96 in the Unit 3 dormitories (Ida Sproul to be exact) is where this spectacular story of my first-time-ever encounter with ye olde Fire Water.

A few weeks into the summer session, I got to know most of the people in the dorm and made a lot of good friends. One of those friends, Youki would be the harbinger of my impending demise.
A bunch of people in Ida Sproul decided to throw a party on the 3rd floor. I was going to attend, but not drink as I was afraid of what might happen.

Youki decides that this situation is unacceptable and about an hour before the party is supposed to start he brings with him: bottle of absolute, bottle of glenlivet, bottle of jack daniels, and 4 other guys from throughout the dorm. We gather at my desk in my room and Youki pours the vodka shots. The other guys all down their shots. I sit there with a stupid look on my face and proceed to make a rookie mistake. I smell the shot of vodka and yell, "what the fuck? you want me to drink that? it smells like rubbing alcohol!"

PUSSY! WIMP! CHICKEN! These and more obscenties followed but I couldn't hear because I finally took the shot. It burned. Looking back, absolute was probably not a good idea as it is shit vodka, but what did I know? We did a few more shots of vodka, one of the glenlivet, and one of the whisky. Then we moseyed on up to the 3rd floor party. I had a pretty damn good buzz going on at this time and thought to myself that it would be ok to stop drinking. Youki must have sensed this and told me, "dude, you need to have at least one drink every hour so you don't lose your buzz." I agreed and kept drinking... and drinking.... When the room started to spin, I stopped. The next thing I remember was being dragged to the balcony and placed on a lawn chair type thing so I could get some fresh air. This is where the shit hit the fan for me. From what I remember and what I was told the next day, I kept screaming about how my dad was going to find out I was drunk and that he was gonna kill me. One guy, out of desparation to get me sober decided to hand me two caffeine pills. I took them. Did not help. The only other logical conclusion was to take me to my room and have me sleep it off. On the way through the lounge, I noticed a 1.5liter bottle of water sitting on a table. I have no idea how the hell this happened or what I was thinking but, I could have sworn that the bottle was laughing at me. I yelled out, "what the fuck are you laughing at!" and punched the bottle across the room. At this point, I pretty much just passed out.

I woke up the next morning with not only a pounding headache, but with the worst possible case of dry mouth. My tounge literally felt like a dried up sponge. I wobbled out of bed, drank some water and tried to pull myself together so I could get some breakfast. I made it to the lobby to see Youki and a few of the other guys walking across the quad to the dining commons. They yelled at me to come eat. I nodded and then proceeded to dry heave for the next 10 minutes.

Eventually, I made it to the dining commons. We all talked about the night before and the guys couldn't stop laughing at what I did last night.

I really miss college.