Goldschlager and Omelets

During my last few weeks in Athens, I have decided to commemorate my first thirteen years in my permanent hometown with some of the stories I remember from over the years. It should be noted, those of you who are students of mine, that (much like my roast) much of the hilarity that has ensued has resulted from, shall we say, living, um, on the edge? Of sanity? Of sobriety? In the process, I can honestly say that I have learned ten times as much from the negative results of and the mistakes associated with, um, “partying” than I have from the positive results. The positive results almost always had to do with the fallibility, wisdom, humor, and kindness of the people I was with. So, don’t take this as encouragement. In fact, live, um, vicariously through me, then go study.

It is well known that I don’t exactly “wake up on time.” Ever. During one semester in particular, I had a practicum which required my skinny butt to get out of bed around 6:40am each Friday in order to get to this required activity. After two failed attempts to do so, the impending threat of being dropped from the course associated with the practicum brought my friends and I to decide that the necessary remedy would be for me to stay at their place so they could wake me up.

For the sake of protecting the innocent, we will call these friends “Brad” and “Warren.” Ok, who are we kidding? Those are their real names.

Most Friday mornings, I would sleep on the couch, awakened by my dear friends by one of them holding a cup of freshly brewed coffee under my nose until I exhibited some sign of life.

As an aside, it was sometimes deemed wisest for me to sleep in Warren’s bedroom on the floor. Warren is what we might call a “wav file pioneer” or at least an early junkie. He had a huge stereo in his room connected to his mac, and had managed to rig the machine to play a selected wav file at a specified time. On one of the Friday mornings, Warren set the mac to play a specific wav file at 6:40 am, in order to complete the difficult task of waking me up. I have never been so scared in my life as I was that morning as I was treated to the sounds of the “Theme from Shaft” blaring from Warren’s stereo (which was set to 11). “Shut yo’ mouth.”

Anyway, on a particular Friday night, after having stayed there, I decided to go ahead and stay another night. A night of moderate to heavy drinking ensued. We probably watched The Nutty Professor, as we did about twice a week. Then, for some stupid reason, Brad got into the Goldschlager. For those of you who are non-drinkers, this is pretty much the equivalent of an infant “getting into the bleach.”

Brad wasn’t and isn’t much of a drinker… unless he can derive some ridiculously valuable result from it to which he may lay glad claim in a more sober state (take that as you wish). But on this night, he indulged beyond the point of necessity or good taste, and went to bed smiling and cursing (for the record, when Brad curses, it means he is happy).

The following morning, I woke to the smell of an Atkins-friendly breakfast cooking, the sounds of “Theme from the Dukes of Hazzard” and “Lindsay Scott, Lindsay Scott, Lindsay Scott” being shot from the afterburners of Warren’s stereo, and the admonition of “Dude…. ‘t’s breakfast. Get your ass up.”

Brad, who was cooking as Warren pretended to do something productive (but was more likely rearranging the order of the wav files of the SEC fight songs on his playlist), made a critical mistake in the process of cooking. For some reason, Brad decided that there was something in the freezer that he needed in order to finish cooking breakfast. I sat covered on the couch, bleary-eyed but observant as I watched Brad open the freezer. I noted the most visible contents of said freezer to be the bottle of Goldschlager which had bent his liver the night before.

Apparently Brad did too. As he eyed the contents of the freezer, he himself froze. He stared, lifeless for about five seconds, coughed twice, then ran as he never has to the bathroom where the proof of the night before was emptied into the toilet by way of his filthy mouth, and into the Clarke County sewer… only from the sight of the offending beverage.

He has never denied this, but doesn’t like to talk about it. So if you ask him, don’t say I brought it up… so to speak.