Drunky Drunkerson from Drunktown

Thanks to a vague reference by one of my best friends on a facebook post, I have been fielding messages regarding one of the most ridiculously stupid, humiliating nights of my life. So here it is, laid out there for everyone to see. The whole story. The story of the night I beat the living hell out of myself.

It happened a while back, maybe 7 or 8 years ago. My good friend Wendy and someone else we worked with at the time whose name is also Wendy, and I left work and headed off to a hole in the wall bar where the drinks are strong and cheap. It was hot that day and I gulped down three screw drivers right off the bat. I admit, this was stupid, but I was thirsty and it was happy hour. This means that the drinks that were normally $2.50, already an amazing deal, especially since the drinks were heavy on cheap vodka and light on orange juice were now $1.25. I mean the drinks are so strong they’re translucent.  After my initial thirst quenching binge, I was averaging about four an hour. The price was right and I was just in the mood to drink. Feeling that I was nearing the point of no return, I handed Wendy my wallet for safe keeping. You may be wondering why I did this. Let me explain. Apparently when my brain is swimming in liquor it believes that I am a very wealthy person and everyone is my friend. I am a bartender’s dream. Being the good friend that she is, when it appears that I am channeling my imaginary trust fund, Wendy holds my wallet. She’s awesome like that.

After several hours, I noticed that Wendy is missing. Apparently the party was moving to a different bar and I was riding with fake Wendy, but I was unaware of this. I turn to fake Wendy and ask her where Wendy went. She looks confused.

“Umm. I’m right here.”

“Noooooooo, fake Wendy. Where’s MY Wendy.”

“Oh, we’re heading over to Rodeo. She just left.”

Here’s where I panic. I know she has my wallet and I also know that if I arrive home without it, Dewie is going to murder me. I run out of the bar just in time to see Real Wendy getting into her car. As I step down out of the doorway my flip flop gets caught on the metal grate door mat thingy and I fall face first into the concrete. I actually knock myself unconscious. When I come to, the owner of the bar is kneeling over me. He was a biker type fellow with long, gray, wavy hair, and the porch light was shining through his hair creating kind glowing halo around his face. In my barely conscious, drunken state I looked him in the eye and muttered, “Oh my God, was I wrong? Are you Jesus? Am I dead?” To which he laughed hysterically and continued to hold a wet towel to my bleeding mouth. Meanwhile, fake Wendy is horrified and real Wendy who is barely visible behind Weegie (the bar owner) has fallen to her knees with frenzied laughter. My head slowly clears and I realize what just happened.

Fake Wendy says, “Maybe we should just take her home.”

To which I stupidly reply, “Nah, I’m fine. Who’s driving me?”

To which real Wendy says, “Go get in my car. I got this.”

 I slowly get up and head in that direction.  On the ride over to Rodeo it suddenly dawns on me that I can’t feel my teeth. Thinking I left them on the front stoop of the bar, I turn to real Wendy, smile really big and ask her if I still have all my teeth. She recoils, which scares me until she says, “Don’t bleed in my car.” And I realize that the face was a reaction to my BLOODY teeth, not missing ones.  We arrive at the new bar and real Wendy turns to me before we get out, hands me a napkin and says through giggles, “You still have blood on your face. Oh and fix your hair.”

As we walk up to the door, real Wendy is walking a few steps behind me. The door is glass, but blacked out with some sort of tinting which my stupid swimming brain registers as “open.” It was not. I walked right into the door. I don’t mean I bumped it. I walked into it with all the confidence of simply walking over a threshold. With my face. I vaguely remember the bouncer snorting with laughter before I once again, you guessed it, lost consciousness. I had managed to knock myself out twice in one night. Real Wendy is actually shaking with laughter and can barely stand as she “helps” me into the bar and parks me at a table.

 I remember very little from that night after that point, other than there was a strange step up into the bathroom that once again caused me to bite it, but that time was physically unharmed, not that I would have noticed an extra bruise or two. 

**RIP Weegie. We miss you.**

The Collar

A few days ago, our mama kitty, Sawyer came home with two puncture wounds on her hiney, like she was running away from something and it just got a piece of her nubby bob tail. She doesn’t go very far from the house because she’s old and lazy so I’m guessing it was the new neighbor’s puppy that they’re keeping in the backyard. So I clean her up and evaluate the damage. Two puncture wounds, not deep and a little rippage, no need for stitches. No problem. I clean it up and pack the holes with antibiotic cream, give her some sympathy loving and send her on her way.

The next morning at chow time I check the wounds again and find that she has chewed off the skin around the holes and now has two silver dollar sized open, oozing, bleeding wounds. I should have seen this coming. This cat is crazy neurotic anyway. I should have known she’d be a picker. I tried to explain to her that there will always be an edge to the owie and continuing to clean it back will only make the owie bigger, but she just looked at me with confused, wide eyes as if to say, “Have you seen what’s wrong with my ass? Why aren’t you doing something?” So for her own good, to keep her from skinning herself, we pull out the collar. The most ridiculous invention on earth, and yet the only thing that is in anyway effective when dealing with pickers. I wrap the cone around her tiny little head and clean the now giant wound again. When I sit her on the floor she seems confused. She stands perfectly still like she’s afraid the thing might be alive. This is a good thing. For the next few days she’ll just sit there while those Silence of the Lambs wounds heal. It is not to be. Sawyer slowly starts to back up, like she might have her head stuck in a jar.  Try as she might, she cannot back out of this contraption on her head. She does this for a good 15 minutes, and as sad as it is, I can’t help but be amused. Then suddenly she’s had enough. Sawyer flies into a rage and starts to fly around the room, still running backwards, with all her tiny might. She bangs the wounds into the walls, chairs, shelves leaving defiant smears of blood all over the room. This is both horrifying and hilarious.  I call Dewie into the room.

“What the hell is she doing?” (Bam! Conk. Bang!)

“I don’t think she likes the cone.” (Bonk! Bang! Bang!)

“Why is she running backwards?” (Thud! Bam!)

“She’s trying to back out of it…really fast.” (Bang! Bang! Thud!)

“That cat is so crazy.”  (Bam! Bam!)

“Right? I’ll pick her up and try to settle her down if you clean up the blood.”

“Gross.”

“She’s clearly not happy, so do you want to deal with your blood or hers?”

“Hers.”

I bend down to catch Sawyer, which isn’t as hard as it seems because she’s still moving backwards and bumping into things like a pinball machine. I try to cuddle her and she is surprisingly compliant. I lay a towel down on the bed and let her snuggle her little cone right up to me and she quickly falls asleep. I guess all that backwards running is exhausting. She’s calm for now. I’ll take it. It’s going to be a long couple of days.