Life Takes You Funny Places… And Lets You Bring Back Funny Alcohol
So essentially I haven’t posted in ages. The last time I wrote, I was upset that I was missing a night of fun in Sicamous with my friends back home in B.C. There still is a second part to my Nostalgic Moose story, and I intended to tell it when I posted next. However, so many amusing stories have unfolded in the meantime that I’d be doing the world a disservice to not immediately share them.
My life has changed immensely, and more entertaining, funny-when-drunk friends have entered it. More amazingly hilarious stories featuring the B.C. crew will unfold in the future, no doubt, especially when Jenn gets married in Mexico in May. Poor poor resort, not knowing what they’re getting themselves into by letting our group get all-inclusive packages. If I don’t end up behind the bar in a coconut bra with a pair of maracas, the trip wasn’t a success, as far as I’m concerned.
In any case, I’ve stayed in Sudbury and learned to deal with their over-abundance of Tim Horton’s locations, and under-abundance of Starbucks stores. I’ve moved into a house with Ashley, Blake, and Tyler. Tyler and I recently bought ourselves a puppy. His name is Zeke and he likes beer so he can stay as far as I’m concerned. The thing I like most about the three people I live with is that they also enjoy drinking and seem to think I’m funny when I do so. Anyone that approves of my braindead drunk humor is a winner in my books.
I also went to Europe this year. Eleven countries. My friend Robbie who did the Contiki tour with me was fairly surprised that I kept it somewhat contained on the trip… until Venice. But that’s a story in itself. What you need to know about my European adventure at this point is that we did a tour of an Absinthe factory in Vienna, Austria. This place sold every type of Absinthe and Absinthe-related products you could probably imagine. The real stuff with wormwood, etc., not that green crap they sell in liquor stores here. At the end of the tour we, of course, had the opportunity to buy Absinthe. This included a wooden box that came with a bottle of the strongest Absinthe, sugar, and an Absinthe spoon…
I learned something new at the factory. Apparently when one consumes Absinthe, the correct way to do so is by heating up sugar on the Absinthe spoon and pouring the alcohol through it into the shot glass. This makes it taste better, and apparently “causes it not to burn” when swallowed. However, being Canadian and having consumed Everclear Grain Alcohol (95% 190 Proof) on more than one occasion, I naturally assumed Absinthe was weak sauce and declined the opportunity to buy the set. I loudly declared to the rest of the group that I’d just shoot it straight. And last weekend, that is what I did.
First of all, I’d like to note that having a bottle of real Absinthe and a bottle of Everclear (both unopened) in the same house is a bad idea. There is absolutely no reason this is necessary, and should be strongly cautioned against. However, since I’m ridiculously entertaining at the best of times, I feel the need to have two abnormally potent bottles of booze on the bar.
Tyler’s been looking forward to opening the Absinthe since I unveiled it to him. Technically, it IS his… I brought it back for him. This past weekend was Blake’s birthday. The initial plan to unveil it was on my 26th birthday on August 2nd; but that ended up being a terrible day, I had a pulled back muscle (sure sign that I’m aging rapidly) and Tyler had mono. Awesome birthday. Therefore, we silently decided to forego the booze, and did the honors on Blake’s birthday instead.
I’m going to be honest, I wasn’t in the mood to party at first last Saturday. As Tyler so graciously put it, I was “genderly” sick. Too much information? Too bad. I stayed in bed till about 7:30 and then decided I was being lame and I should go mingle for a bit and have a “couple” drinks. A tactic that often doesn’t work well for me. I began with my signature 26 of vodka. Ashley was also drinking a 26 of vodka; I believe our other friend Chelsea may have been as well. I mingled a little and started drinking faster; typical Kim style.
I remember feeling a bit buzzed and telling some guy that Che Guevara was my hero, since he was wearing his picture on his shirt, and then Tyler and I proceeding to tell him about every piece of Che Guevara merchandise I acquired in Cuba and thereafter. I remember people watching Fubar. I remember Christine dropping by to say hi. I remember the shot glass crisis of earlier in the evening; where we discovered that for some reason we didn’t have any. Luckily Blake’s mom gave us some amethyst-colored goblets (which we initially mocked) that seemed to fill the void. I remember Ashley doing jagerbombs outside…
Most of all, I remember the decision to crack the Absinthe. Tyler had, in fact, come up to me early in the evening (before any of us were super trashed) and asked if it seemed like a good idea to drink some Absinthe later. Now that I’m reflecting on this question, it seems like a better answer would have been…Wait…Who am I kidding? Of course it was a good idea. Moving on…
The time was upon us. The decision to consume the Absinthe had been made and was about to be finalized. We were gathered around the bar. I was so drunk already that I only remember myself, Tyler, Ashley, Blake, Deacon, Chelsea, and Cody standing there. There were others, I’m sure of it. There were a wise few that didn’t partake in our adventure. I was not one of the wise, thankfully, otherwise the story would be far less comical.
Tyler felt compelled to measure the shots, and he did so in some disgusting, old, used, retired, plastic shot glass he found laying behind the bar. He rinsed it out, and that literally means he “rinsed it out” aka - ran a little bit of water through it that probably did absolutely nothing in terms of cleansing. Soon thereafter, the shots were ready. Fluorescent green, glowing. It appeared to be a warm, invited liquid. It smelled different, unlike anything we had experienced before. It tasted……absolutely horrible.
We all finished our shots, and literally a second after, all we saw was Blake running to the toilet to puke immediately. Tyler was in the midst of stating “Wow, that was so much worse than I thought…” and Blake was already on his knees with his head in the toilet. I don’t remember what I did, but I wandered off briefly and when I returned, Tyler was holding the Everclear in his hand, thrusting it toward the ceiling, making declarative statements about drinking it. For some reason, I felt cocky, grabbed the bottle and chugged a good amount (at least a shot, if not a little more) from it. I must have mentioned Everclear somewhere else in this blog, but if for some weird reason I didn’t, know this: it vaporizes immediately after drinking it.
Tyler and Deacon can also be bowed to, they did a shot as well. I honestly thought I was going to puke, so I immediately went to the washroom after taking the shot, but I didn’t puke. Instead, I broke the flapper chain on the inside of the toilet. From there, the state of our bathroom deteriorated beyond all recognition. We kept flushing the toilet using only the flapper until it clogged (everyone else ended up puking later on except Deacon and I so I’m sure that didn’t help either).
After I broke the chain, I decided to be industrious and see what was going on in the tank (like I have any idea how to plumb a toilet), so I took everything off the back except a glass air freshener filled with smelly bead things. Needless to say, the bead things went EVERYWHERE on the floor. I began scrambling to pick them up, and as I leaned over, I smacked my head on the side of the toilet tank.
I have no idea what happened after that. I woke up the next morning at 7:30 a.m. feeling like absolute shit, still fully clothed, and with a giant goose egg on my head. Tyler told me a couple hours later that I had a huge bruise. It took me a while to remember the toilet repair incident, but once I did, it all made sense. Turns out, Tyler had puked, but chosen the sink as his receptacle so it was filled with barf (and clogged beyond all hope with puke, crap, and a lot of my hair. gross).
Will I drink Absinthe again? Yes. Will I drink Everclear again? Yes. Both on the same night? Probably, and I hope the result is as entertaining.
Kim Out.
