Curing the Hangover (Again)...

Hello Friends.

Did you ever get up in the middle of the night to pee and realize it's one in the afternoon? Or try to hail a cab home from a party without realizing you were standing inside of a store? Or realize that the well-meaning bartender has been serving you doubles all night so your three vodka tonics were equivalent to some goddamn number you can't calculate because you're drunk? Then you've been hungover.

Dream: Make a hangover bearable.

Goal: Achievable, but keep your celebration minimal, I've got one of those behind-my-eye headaches.

Plan: Several.

Suffer in solitude. What I don't get is how two people can have the same evening with the same alcohol content, and your morning after is rarely identical. Inexplicably, you can wake up feeling like shit and your partner has a tiger by the tail! “Good morning, Sunshine! Nice of you to join me!” Ugh. The worst part is, I'm usually the annoying one! I like the occasional cocktail, but I rarely drink to excess. Something about the loss-of-control in drunkenness really knocks me off kilter. I don't know why, I can't drive or perform CPR, so a sober me is as useless as a drunk me, but I still keep my drinking fairly conservative. Jon's tolerance is higher than mine, but he will usually be the one to have one glass too many and wake up feeling rough. Not all the time, of course, don't get the wrong impression, but there have been occasions where he's not doing so hot but I'm all, “Let's go look at grandfather clocks!” or “Wanna hear me sing Lady Gaga songs? Here they are in order of their release!” The point is, as lovely as it is to have someone wet you a washcloth or turn down the tv, the detriments of having a partner in this instance outweigh the benefits.

The consumption of bad food, which is good. I don't know if there's science behind our cravings for eggs, bacon and carbs after a night out, but I say treat yourself! And, since you probably shouldn't be frying bacon or dealing with putrid breakfast dishes in your delicate condition, take yourself out for breakfast. I believe we should have hangover-themed restaurants (hangover like the phenomenon, of course, not the terrible film franchise). They would serve breakfast food, but also mimosas and Bloody Mary cocktails if you decided to merely delay the hangover and keep booze pumping through you. Each restaurant would be small and comfortable, with no children or boisterous activity allowed. Sorry, hungover parents, but you damn well better keep your loud, excitable, yelling children at McDonald's because they will not be allowed at my restaurant, tentatively titled Rough Night?. The staff at Rough Night? will be made up of retired psychiatric nurses, childless aunts and uncles, and non-judgey librarians. They'll be quiet, efficient and sympathetic and say things like, “Ohh, look at you. Okay, just come on inside. Do you want coffee? Of course you do, here, just take a rest now.”

Finally, I'm afraid the only real cure to hangover is time, which is the worst. The thing I always forget on a night when I drink too much is that, even if I have the next day off, I won't be free to do whatever I want, I'll be in recovery. Somehow, I think I'll just be able to shake it off, do my laundry, clean my apartment, and go birdwatching with a free Sunday, but on my last hangover day, I only managed to wake up late, shower for a long time and eat a blizzard at some point for no reason. I certainly don't condone getting drunk, but what if we were to consider hangovers as some kind of cosmic payment? In exchange for a headache, mouth that tastes like sweaters, eggs and bacon, we get a long night of too much fun with a bunch of friends? Seems fair, doesn't it? I'll drink to that.