At age 17, my personal motto was “When the going gets tough, quit and feel sorry for yourself.” The path of least resistance was my chosen path. And I explored it to its fullest. One miserable, stormy morning at Orange Park High, I was leaving 1st period drama class and my friend Will walked up to me and said “I don’t feel like being here. Wanna skip the rest of the day?” Naturally, I did. We didn’t go anywhere or do anything exciting, so I ended up ditching Will and walking over to Rob’s. Rob was the son of a single mother truck driver who abandoned him and his little sister, Sabrina, whenever she was “truckin’ all 48 states.” It was about 8 AM and Rob invited me to do some shots of Scope. That’s when you do a double shot of vodka and chase it with a double shot of peppermint Schnapps. After 4 Scopes, I wandered off to the nearest bedroom and took a nap. A few hours later, I woke up still fully clothed in Sabrina’s bed with a topless Sabrina straddling and kissing me. I had no memory of how I got there. I jumped out of bed in shock and staggered to the kitchen where Rob generously offered me another Scope. A few hours later, I woke up back in bed with Sabrina. Sometimes, you just can’t win.
The next day at school, I was flagged for skipping and sent to the Dean’s office. Hungover and not in the mood to deal with being in trouble, I left. I quit. I was done with OPHS. I wasn’t making bad grades. I wasn’t getting in trouble all the time. I just didn’t feel like going to school anymore. So I walked home, crawled into bed, and went back to sleep. I knew my parents wouldn’t be pleased, so I woke up and left around 4:30 PM so I wouldn’t have to tell them about my brilliant plan to drop out and work at Taco Bell for the rest of my life. Instead, I headed to my buddy Pat’s house.
I was pretty upset about the bind I’d just gotten myself into and trying not to think about it. It was a Friday night and a group of us were going up to our usual hangout Einstein A Go Go. In Pat’s neighborhood, there was a guy named Paul, who was a lot of fun, but had a bad habit of getting trashed in public and making a fool of himself. On this night, I was in the mood to join in on the idiocy. At Paul’s, we got into his parent’s liquor cabinet and were about to steal a bottle when Paul advised they would know if a bottle was missing. So he broke out a small cooler and filled it with a few ounces of everything in the cabinet: whiskey, gin, scotch, vodka, bourbon, rum, Hot Damn, Midori, Jagermeister, Kahlua, Bailey’s, Triple Sec, and probably a few others. Then Paul decided we should have a mixer, so he broke open a Capri Sun and topped off the toxic mixture.
Now it was time for a night on the town.
Back at Pat’s house, I was chugging shots of this evil mixture from Dixie Cups while chatting with his little brother John about the dumbass decision I just made to drop out of school. John just sat there and laughed as I got more and more slurred with each shot. It wasn’t very long until I’d degenerated into rambling drunken gibberish. Pat was being responsible, though. He only had a few sips since he was driving. Ready for a fun night at the club, me, Pat, and Paul, swung by to pick up our friend Jaime and then made our way to Jax Beach. Me and Paul were beyond trashed at this point and even as drunk as I was, I could tell Jaime wasn’t pleased. In fact, she was REALLY displeased. Nothing could be done at that point, though. The Ben and Paul Drunkass Express had already left the station.
The rest of the night was hazy, but here is a synopsis of what I remember:
• Before going inside Einstein’s, we went to McDonald’s (presumably because me and Paul had bladders full of that evil cocktail).
• We were thrown out of McDonald’s and told never to come back, although I don’t remember exactly what we did.
• Upon staggering inside Einstein’s, I tripped over my own feet, Paul tripped over me and laid on me, and both of us were so drunk, we had to wait for Pat to pick us up and help us to a table.
• I had my first drunken vomiting experience into a nasty, pee soaked nightclub toilet.
• I wandered up to my friend Charlotte, who tried give me a stern lecture on being an irresponsible drunken dropout, but ultimately degenerated into her going back to the car with us drinking the rest of that Godawful mix.
• I professed my undying love for Charlotte.
• Charlotte sarcastically told me I was the only man she ever loved.
• I started to profess my undying love for Jaime, but stopped when I realized I'd really, really pissed her off.
• I professed my undying love to some girl named Ashley and started to make out with her before ending abruptly presumably because I reeked of vomit and the men’s bathroom floor.
• I gave my ex-girlfriend Kristen a hickey on her neck.
• I overheard Paul telling Pat “I’d be OK if it wasn’t for that Goddamned Ale!”
Anyway, stay in school, kids. And don't ever, EVER drink that Goddamned Ale.
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