My Liver Needs A Vacation

I'm hungover right now, in a bad way. I'm hungover from drinking two days ago. I felt pretty shitty yesterday, but I made it through work and overall, I had experienced worse hangovers in college. But this morning, I woke up and my stomach was still in knots. My head is still throbbing, all from a "work dinner" on Wednesday.

As part of our marketing efforts, my office takes out teams from various insurance brokers that we work with. I've attended a couple of these events in the past, and for the most part, they are pretty tame. Obviously the level of drinking depends on the group. However, about a year ago, there was an infamous "work dinner" (I did not attend). The result was numerous rounds of tequila shots, the senior guys in my office getting yelled at by their wives, and lots of hungover people the next day. Since then, I think some of the people in my office have been trying to recreate the event. As a result, Wednesday night's dinner was at a tequila bar/restaurant.

Things started out at a slow pace. Everyone ordered a round. One of my senior marketers, whose notorious for only drinking tequila, got me to start of by just drinking tequila, neat, with a splash of lime. This continued for a few rounds. Then he suggested shots. That was fine. Everyone did the first round. Then a second round of shots and another round of drinks was ordered. Now before going forward, I need to also let you know the drinking preferences of my boss, who I happened to be sitting right next to. He's a wine drinker and rarely drinks anything else. Tonight, because we were out with clients at a tequila bar, he acquiesced and had a round of shots and tequila drinks. However, every time people ordered another round, they ordered him a tequila drink, which he "kindly gave" to me and had me drink for him. So basically, for every one drink everyone else had, I had two. I was also drinking primarily shots or tequila, neat, with a splash of lime.

After a couple hours, everyone was pretty lit up and some people, including my boss, had to catch trains back to CT. As has always been the case, there is the expectation that the young guys in the office will take the other young guys out to continue drinking. To not do that would be kind of rude, especially when you are with clients. So we gathered our things and headed to a great rooftop bar nearby. Just as we were leaving the tequila bar, I ran into Molly Shannon from SNL and kindly, but drunkenly, introduced myself to her and complimented her on her work on SNL. Moron!

We started the night off early, like around 5:30. At this point, it was only a little after 8. To my best estimate, I had already had about 10 tequila drinks/shots, but I was doing alright. However, when we got to the next bar, one of the clients wanted to do Jag bombs. He had not drank a lot at the previous place and not being much of a tequila drinker himself, had drank mostly beer. Unfortunately, no one was quick to take him up on his offer for Jag bombs. Again, to leave him hanging like that would be kind of rude, as he is the client, so I said okay. I think that's where the night started to go downhill for me.

The rest of the night is very vague. I remember many more rounds of mostly Red Bull vodkas. I remember calling Evan up and having him meet us at the bar to drink on the company tab. I remember calling Dani once, though she says I called her like 15 times. I remember briefly talking to my dad on the phone. I remember some guy at the bar getting in my face, putting his hands on me and us almost getting into a fight (though Evan was able to separate us). I remember one of my co-workers standing at the bar and then 10 seconds later, seeing him fall in slow motion to the ground. Said co-worker decided it was time for him to leave, but "graciously" left me his corporate AmEx so I could continue to run up the alcohol bill. Probably not the best decision he's ever made. I remember going to Le' Express, a nice drunk hungry place where I usually end up at when I drink with Evan. And then I remember eventually getting home to bed.

Two days later and I'm still hurting.

One thing, however, kind of makes me laugh. Said co-worker who fell at the bar and gave me his AmEx...I saw him the next morning and he looked like shit. He basically blacked out and barely remembered the previous night. However, he does remember getting into a black cab to go home and not having cash on him to pay. He also, at some point, thought he was in Tribeca (we were nowhere near Tribeca all night). Turns out, what he thought was Tribeca was actually The Met. Somehow he ended up there and was wandering around drunkenly at night. How he actually got back to his apartment is still a mystery.

We have 3 more of these things planned for the next month. Until the next one, I think the liver needs some room to breath.