You Deserve a Drink: Boozy Misadventures and Tales of Debauchery

by Mamrie Hart

  My intake of candy went off the charts. I was eating so many miniature candy bars that I would actually stick my hand deeper in the trash can to hide the wrappers. I didn’t want the shiny evidence sitting there on top.

  I remember being in a client-services meeting and my boss saying, “Guys, seriously, we are going through, like, four hundred percent more chocolate than we normally do. What’s the deal?” That’s when I sheepishly raised my hand and admitted that the FedEx guy helped himself to two handfuls a day.*

  This terrible diet lasted through the entire winter. Whatever money I saved on food was being spent on larger pants, but I couldn’t help myself. At this point, I was addicted. I’ve always scoffed at those stupid magnets and aprons about “chocoholism.” You know the ones. They’ve got a doodled grandma in sunglasses saying, “Hand over the chocolate, and no one gets hurt!” But there I was, slowly turning into the live-action version of a Cathy comic. ACK!

  Winter in New York finally let up, and it was spring. Melissa was graduating from college, and I thought it would be super fun to surprise her. So, I hopped on a Greyhound bus to Chapel Hill.

  Now, if you’ve never had the pleasure of riding on a Greyhound bus before, oh man, you’ve got to try it. The sights (people fighting), the smells (someone trying to smoke weed in the bathroom mixed with undertones of Chinese food) . . . it’s unlike any experience you’ve ever had. For some reason people assume that being on a Greyhound is like being on international waters, and common laws don’t apply. If you’re extra lucky you can even have your cell phone stolen out of your lap while you’re sleeping, which is precisely what happened to me!

  After thirteen hours of breathing through my nose, the bus finally pulled into the station. My friend Chrissie picked me up knowing that Melissa would soon be coming over to retrieve the graduation gift that I’d “sent” to Chrissie’s. An hour later, I was crouched in a wrapped box waiting to pop out. I’m gonna be brutally honest with you guys—I live for this shit. I love surprising people! Specifically, with myself as the prize. I would totally be one of those strippers who pops out of cakes if I trusted myself not to eat said cake. Before I knew it, I was jumping out of the box, screaming, “Surprise!” And let me tell you, Melissa was shocked. She immediately started crying and hugging me, jumping up and down. Finally, she pulled away, ready to speak.

  Wiping away a tear, she looked me in the eyes and said, “You got fat!” And you know what, guys? I couldn’t even blame her. I had. I had gained twenty-five pounds in five months of tiny chocolate bars. Twenty-five pounds. I still looked like myself. But I also looked like I had a bee allergy and had just been stung by a bee eighty times. All that “starving artist” talk from the summer before was laughable.

  There I was, back in my home state, with all its incredible southern cuisine, feeling like the Michelin Man. In true NC style, Melissa was throwing a pig pickin’ for her graduation party. For you folks who didn’t grow up in a town that takes cigarette factory field trips, a “pig pickin’” is when you bring in a pitmaster to roast an entire pig in your backyard.

  You know how when you are packing a little extra padding you get self-conscious about pigging out in front of people? For someone who was feeling fat and hadn’t eaten meat in thirteen years, obviously I . . . ate seven pounds of pork that day. Yep! I had some vegetarian mental break and said, “Fuck it. I’m gonna eat some fuckin’ pork.” I was like the Tasmanian Devil with BBQ flying everywhere. I literally pigged out.

  The rest of the weekend was amazing! I made plenty of jokes about my weight and how it was all from candy, and how that made me one step closer to my dream of being John Candy. I knew that when I got back to NYC, I was going to have to cut off the rampant choco-addiction cold turkey. And guess what? I did. And then I gained thirty pounds solely off Fritos. I kid! It was only five pounds.

  In the end, I learned a lot about myself that first winter in New York—a lot about my addictive personality, my perseverance, and my ability to cut things off. But probably the most important thing I learned was . . . Don’t eat a shit-ton of pork for the first time in a decade right before a fourteen-hour bus ride home.

  Flaming Sips

  1 oz gin

  1 oz grapefruit juice

  ½ oz chili simple syrup

  Champagne

  To make the chili syrup, simply take one red Fresno chili and slice it in half lengthwise, removing the seeds. Throw that into a saucepan on the stovetop with 1 cup of water and 1 cup of sugar until the sugar is totally dissolved. Let it simmer for 5 minutes or so, until the spice level is to your liking.

  Add the gin, grapefruit juice, and chili syrup to a champagne flute. Top with bubbly, then take that flute to the face like an overeager band geek.

  You can’t ring in the New Year without a big glass of brut. Or fourteen glasses of bubbly. This champ of champagnes gives your taste buds a little kick and might even help you slow down on the drinking.

  Oh wait, we add extra booze to the bubbly. Never mind!

  Throughout my life there have been lots of things that I’ve set the bar really high for, only to end up being disappointed. Like losing my virginity, or the end of every episode of House Hunters. But the number one fail is always New Year’s Eve.

  When I was a little girl and would try my hardest to stay up till midnight, sipping my sparkling apple juice, I used to fantasize about what New Year’s Eve would be like once I was a grown-up. I had visions of looking fabulous in a cute new dress, holding a glass of champagne as all my closest friends count down: three . . . two . . . one. Then the handsome gentleman I’ve been talking to all night dips me, planting the hottest kiss ever on my lips as fireworks explode in the air. We come up from the dip, and I say, “What’s that for?” He strokes my cheek and says, “Because I still can’t believe you’re my wife.”

  Boom! See, you thought he was a stranger but he was my husband. You just got Shyamalaned.

  Alas, there is no magical kiss. No fireworks. Hell, there ain’t even a cute dress. Most New Year’s Eves in adulthood you end up getting into a random fight with a friend and leaving the party barefoot, then wake up with a week-old Chipotle burrito in your bed and the superembarrassing apology texts you sent said friend opened on your phone. It always struck me as odd that on NYE you make resolutions for the coming year and everyone gets all excited that next year will be the year. Then you spend the first day of the new, exciting year hungover and eating food so greasy you can’t snap your fingers for a week.

  New Year’s Eve celebrations in college are no good, either. You want to spend the holiday with all your new best friends at school, but it’s winter break, so you have to go home. This usually means trying to plan a big NYE with the high school friends you haven’t seen since that week you were home over summer break. There’s too much pressure to have fun! And too much pressure to laugh at your old friends’ new stories about puking in some quad that you’ve never heard of.

  New Year’s Eve my freshman year kicked off the streak. My high school girlfriends and I wore matching denim catsuits, so you know we meant business. In my defense, I was eighteen years old and “Love Don’t Cost a Thing” was at the top of the charts.*

  With our blue-jean camel toes in tow, we headed down to Charlotte, North Carolina, the nearest big city to our little town, Boonville. But truth be told, any town with a handful of stoplights (and a Melting Pot. Hellooo!) felt like Gotham compared to my little hometown speck on the map. We had a perfect party-hopping itinerary, but there was one tiny detail we didn’t plan: where we were going to sleep. Charlotte is a good hour and a half from Boonville.

  So! We did what any modern, independent women would do. We called our mildly attractive guy friends who lived in Charlotte and paired off. Now, before you go judging (leave that to Judy—hey, Judy!), it’s not as terrible as it sounds. We didn’t dole out hand jobs to crash on a dirty futon.* It was all innocent m
ake-out stuff, and truth be told, we had all already kissed our respective pairings at some point or another in high school. This was just a victory lap of sorts. Necking down memory lane, if you will.

  Now, readers, let me take this moment to offer you a bit of advice. Do not, under any circumstances, kiss someone at midnight you don’t like, unless you are certain he doesn’t like you either. ’Cause if you think you are having a random tongue war and he actually has a crush on you, that motherfucker will look at you with such sadness the next day, you’d think you had just taken his virginity. But that’s what happens on New Year’s Eve. There is a different romantic pressure put on your inaugural kiss of the year. It’s not just a regular ol’ smooch. It’s an honor. So if it’s going to be meaningless for you, double-check that the lack of feeling is mutual.

  That year I made the mistake of not asking, and woke up to my friend Chris watching me sleep. Awwwww, that’s so sweet! you might say. No! Watching someone sleep is not sweet; it’s creepy. The only reason for watching someone sleep is if you are a first-time parent making sure your newborn is still breathing, or if you’re a hospice nurse—that is, unless death is involved, don’t be creepin’ on my sleepin’.

  I opened my eyes to Chris staring at me, which was bad enough, but then he followed it up by asking me, “Want some gummy bears?” The man was eating gummy bears and watching me sleep.

  From there, the New Year’s Eves only got worse. Sophomore year we ended up sleeping in a car after getting lost looking for a field party for four hours. Junior year my friend took one bong rip at a party and thought her anus had turned into a tail. She refused to leave the bathroom because she thought people would see said “ass tail.” Then I held her hair back while she puked up cupcakes as everyone else outside the bathroom watched the ball drop.

  By the time it got to be my senior year, I was determined to break the cycle. I told my high school friends that I would have to sit out Charlotte that year. Instead, I was going to head to the New Year’s Eve capital of the world: New York City. Not only that, but I was going to bring crazy ass Melissa. Not only that, I had also gotten tickets to see the Flaming Lips at Madison Square Garden. And not only that, but I had hired a limo to drive us! That last part isn’t true; I just got caught up in trying to top myself. There was a plan, and goddammit, it was going to be a trip for the ages! Little did I know just how much of a trip it would be.*

  Melissa was the ideal travel partner for this epic New Year’s Eve. She was the type of friend who picks you up to go buy craft supplies at Michaels and drops you off with a tiger tattoo and a new boyfriend named Roscoe. The only problem was that it was the day after Christmas when I came up with this plan. I gave her a ring, praying she could do it.

  At this point, in the mid-2000s, people had these things called ringback tones. You’d call your friend and instead of having to listen to the same boring ringing sound that’s been playing since the Alexander Graham Bell days, you got to hear a song! And Melissa always had the best songs.

  I was breaking it down to “2 Legit 2 Quit” when she finally answered. “What up, bitch!”

  “Hey . . . so . . . I have an idea for New Year’s. It’s totally cool if you aren’t up for it but I got tickets for the Flaming Lips at MSG. Want to make the trek? . . . Melissa? Melissa, did you hang up on me?” I was offended for a minute until she let me know she had dropped the phone and was doing her end zone dance in celebration. The plan was set. We were going to meet in Chapel Hill super early on New Year’s Eve day and drive up together. I also got my camp counselor friend Hayley (a.k.a. Ride ’em Cowboy) to grab a ticket and join our adventure.

  With the top down on her Volvo convertible—big mistake, it was December—we hit the road. According to the map (this is pre–Google Maps! How ancient!), it was going to take us around eleven hours to get there. It probably could’ve taken nine, but I went ahead and factored in stopping at three or four Sonics for Texas Toast grilled cheese, since Melissa was bringing weed.

  Where we were actually going to sleep when we got to New York, we had no idea. I called up Hayley to see if she had any suggestions. Her “Push It” ringback blasted in my ear.

  “Hey, girl, it’s Mame.”

  “Mamie. Get your tight ass over here.” Hayley was already there with friends.

  “We just got on the road, dude. But I wanted to see where y’all were staying. Meltdown and I don’t have a sleeping plan yet.”

  “Stay here with us, ya dumbass. There’s a bunch of us crashing.”

  “I don’t want to intrude. . . .”

  “You won’t be intrudin’. You’ll be rudin’ if you don’t get your ass here. They gave us this huge weird room. Someone must’ve been murdered in here or something. Anyway, you and Melissa can sleep on the floor.”

  A weird massive room crammed with a ton of people and a possible history of homicide? I was in. It might sound like sketch central as an adult, but to a broke college student with nowhere to stay in Manhattan, I felt like Pretty Woman. Except I would be kissing on the mouth.

  When we got there, everyone was so happy to see us—and not just because we came with four grocery bags filled with shitty champagne. Everyone was so happy to see us because they were all on drugs. I forgot to mention that these were my hippie friends, and their drug of choice was mushrooms.

  Hayley swung open the door with, “Mamie! I’m tripping ballzzzz,” then planted a huge kiss on me.

  “Of course you are, crazy!” I hugged her neck as she led us into the Dateline NBC suite.

  “I want some mushrooms!” Melissa said, going right to the guy in the room who had them like a heat-seeking missile. Oh Lord, if everyone else was going to be on drugs, I figured I might as well get drunk, so I cracked open a bottle of champagne and didn’t bother putting it in a cup. I had always wanted to try mushrooms before. I’d been around my friends when they’d eaten them, and I knew it wasn’t that crazy. They would just draw in coloring books and stare at a neon Natty Light sign for four hours.

  But I get really nervous about trying new things like that. I’ve never even taken a Vicodin for pain. I double-check the label every time I take Advil for cramps, for God’s sake. Even though I was intrigued, I wasn’t ready to dive in, so instead I sipped my five-dollar bottle of pink André and watched Melissa as she ate them.

  If this had been a roomful of people on acid instead of mushrooms, I would’ve booked it the hell out of there. People recount acid stories like Vietnam vets recount flashbacks. It’s rarely pretty. You never hear:

  And then the flowers looked super huge and all the pinks were so pink and I realized my face hurt ’cause I had been smiling for seven hours.

  It’s always:

  So then the fire started crawling out of the fireplace toward me but luckily the walls were covered in blood so I knew it wouldn’t burn the house down and so I just wrapped myself up in a giant omelet and counted the ghosts in the room.

  I wasn’t going anywhere near that stuff! To this day I am terrified that someone is going to slip me acid “as a joke.” I don’t even eat those dissolving breath-freshening sheets.

  But mushrooms? I was intrigued. Everyone looked so smiley and like they were having the best time.

  And this is where I’m gonna throw a big ol’ rutabaga on the field!

  I caved. This was the New Year’s Eve when I tried mushrooms.

  I probably wouldn’t have done it if they were the gross, dried-out-looking ’shrooms I’d seen before. These mushrooms, though? They were chopped up into tiny pieces and put into homemade Reese’s cups. They were even wrapped up in gold foil. It was like a Pinterest board for hallucinogens come to life.

  Before I tell you just how amazing it was, let me take this moment as a quick PSA about drug use. I do not condone it. I do not promote it. And I do not suggest it. Seriously. I don’t think drugs are cool. I saw that episode of Saved by the Bel
l where Jessie gets addicted to caffeine pills. I am always so excited, I don’t need pills for it! However, as a twenty-one-year-old adult, I felt like experimenting and felt safe in this group of friends. Did I mention that two of them were almost through nursing school? Hayley actually worked the freak-out tents at music festivals, so if there was anyone to try a drug around, it was her.

  As I sat there rationalizing in my head why this was a totally cool idea and how it was going to set this New Year’s Eve apart from all the shit ones before, someone grabbed my wrist. “Take it easy, Mamie,” Hayley said, lowering my hand, which was full of mushroom chocolates. I’d been inhaling them as I was lost in thought. What can I say? I’m a sucker for the chocolate and peanut butter combo. I had forgotten there were even drugs in them and was just satiating my sweet tooth.

  If I’d eaten to my heart’s content, it would’ve been bad. I would’ve been walking down Broadway three hours later, eating lasagna with my hands and thinking I was the Garfield Thanksgiving Day Parade balloon. Luckily, Hayley had stopped me, and I waited anxiously for the effects to kick in. By the time we were ready to head out, I had housed the champagne and couldn’t tell if I was just a lil’ drunk or feeling the mushrooms yet.

  According to my pupils, I was feeling it.

  Everyone except Melissa, Hayley, and I was going to see their favorite third-tier jam band, the Disco Biscuits. While I give the band kudos for the great name, the actual show was highly lacking in both disco and biscuits and so it wasn’t for me. Plus, we three troublemakers were seeing the mo’fu’in’ Flaming Lips!

  As soon as we left the room, I immediately felt a tingling sensation throughout my body. The walls of the hotel looked like they were pulsating a little. They looked like how a didgeridoo sounds, if that makes sense, but I know it doesn’t, so fuck it. The floral-print carpet that I hadn’t even noticed coming into the hotel became so vibrant. The designs in it were ever-so-slightly moving. It was literally a magic carpet. I could’ve stayed in that hotel hallway and watched the carpet dance for hours, but there was no time to spare. There were Flaming Lips to be watched.