Bath Mats and Customs Forms

When I was 19, I used to be able to drink like Anthony Bourdain. That is to say, with No Reservations. I got drunk fast and I would never get sick, except for maybe a headache the next day. Nothing that couldn't be cured with watching six or so hours of Teen Mom in my dorm room, which I did most afternoons anyway.

Then, I started throwing up every time. I told everyone I was going to stop drinking. I stopped drinking for a little while, but decided I was probably okay to start again.

A friend came to visit me, and to celebrate, we decided that we were going to watch Shrek and also get absolutely slammed. I had to be at work at 10 AM the next day, but tequila's not that bad, right?

I drank like nobody was watching, fell asleep, then woke up at 6 AM, horribly sick.

I went to the bathroom, and I tried to just pee and avoid vomiting, but as I stood up, it became very clear that urine was not going to be the only thing coming out of my body. There was no time to get on the ground, so I just bent over from a standing position toward the toilet. You know when you're trying to wash a spoon in the sink, and you angle it wrong and it sprays all over you and everything you own? It was pretty much that, except it was vomit.

Partially digested Doritos and pizza was everywhere--it was on my sweatpants, on the sides of the toilet, on the floors, on the walls. It was no longer a bathroom; it was an episode of Dirty Jobs. So, with a minimum wage retail shift at 10 AM approaching, I started to clean my own vomit off of the bathroom walls, while whispering to myself "this is fine" over and over again.

What was not fine, however, was the bath mat. Designed to absorb moisture, the bath mat's greatest strength ended up being its greatest downfall. I saw a dog get hit by a car when I was very young, and looking at the bathmat reminded me of that very moment. Both times there was a second where I thought, "Maybe it'll be okay!" when it just so obviously would not be okay.

But I had to give myself enough time to cry in the shower before work, so I just left it there.

I replaced it because I'm not a complete monster, and it is a fucking awesome replacement. It's fluffy, it matches the shower curtain, and it makes that other bathmat look like a shitty glorified towel, really. So technically I think I improved our bathroom.

The scene: an outdoor beer festival taking place at a casino (more specifically, in the parking lot) in Washington State, dangerously accessible by boat from my home city in Canada. It's a package tour, so you get boat, beer and some casino for a really great price. For the second year in a row, I was leaving on the earlier boat sailing home, alone without my friends, in an effort to be "responsible" and "eat dinner"--vegan options at this thing are non-existent. I had about three hours between arrival and departure at the festival.

Things were fine! Tokens were exchanged for 4oz tasters of regional ales, an aging rock cover band powered through Damn The Torpedoes in its entirety. I won $80--with the current exchange rate, that is also known as 'winning the Canadian lottery'--on a video slot machine called Kitty Glitter with my $5 free play. All good. Then the shuttle bus pulled up to take me, and all the seniors who had booked the trip just for the casino aspect, back to the boat for the 5:30 PM sailing home.

What I decided to do was make up for all the drinking I wasn't going to do later in the twenty minutes before I had to get on the bus. This included, but was not limited to, convincing vendors to grossly over serve me, lying to older men about running out of tokens while emphasizing that I wasn't done having fun, and convincing one booth to fill my 1L water bottle with some insane 9 percent fruity beer that looked like wine, about 30 seconds before getting on the bus, and away we went.

Fast forward to me around four hours later, sitting on a bench in my home town, the contents of my bag scattered in a 13 foot radius, loser-pissed and crying, realizing I no longer have a cell phone in my possession. Fast forward again to the restaurant where I am supposed to be meeting my boyfriend at a time I can't remember, not that it would matter because I had no clue what time it was because who wears an actual watch any more, and he isn't there (Yet? Still?) so I leave. I have vague memories of walking home, where I arrived with soaking wet shorts (I tried to pee in a garden on my way home, but I missed), still minus a cell phone, also now minus vintage Ray-Bans--which I am still mad about--to an empty house. Well, empty minus the dog, whose advances I denied and just left the back door open for him to go out while I peeled off my wet shorts and stood howling tears in the kitchen, in full view of the neighbors, as I realized my life was a total disaster.

I emailed and Facebook Messaged my boyfriend: "I HAVE NO PHONE COME HOME PLEASE DON'T LEAVE ME OK," or something like that. He eventually comes home, not at all mad but concerned about my bare-bottom, phoneless state. Finds a pair of his boxers for me and orders me a pizza. I pass out at some point and sleep for around 12 full hours.

The next morning, I email my mom. "No phone, can't pick up cousin form the airport later, might bail on dinner." She knows by now that this means hungover, and she calls me to advise me of two things: 1) she isn't mad, she's disappointed; and 2) some nice cleaner found my phone wedged into a seat at the back of the shuttle bus and was thoughtful enough to text 'Mom', assuming she'd know how to find me.

A few hours later, I realize that I have absolutely zero recollection of both the bus ride and sailing home, but also going through customs at the border. Zero. In my purse later, I found a customs declaration form that I had apparently attempted to fill out, but couldn't write legibly enough to complete. My passport is intact, but folded in half down the middle and will no longer actually close. Did I make a run for it? How wasted was I? Was I going to be allowed back through that border again?

The next weekend, my boyfriend and I took a day trip to the Pacific North West to "hike", but really it was a ruse to make sure I was not in any sort of serious trouble at the border. Luckily, I wasn't, and through a challenging series of events, we even got my phone back.