Clouded Judgment

Warning - God, this is a horrible story. It involves coarse language, poor judgment, bodily excretions that are better left unsaid, and adult situations. It's probably better if you don't read it. But I feel like I should explain what I've been going through for the last few days. I'm not sure why. Some sort of compulsion, I suppose.


So I had determined to go out for a night of fun on Thursday. It had been a while since I'd left the apartment voluntarily and I was due for a change of pace. But that afternoon I got a weird feeling that I know only too well - my jaw started to swell up.

See, I have a wisdom tooth that is in dire need of extraction. And when I went to the dentist, he explained that taking out one requires taking out two, and if I'm gonna take out two, I might as well take out four. And since I don't have any dental insurance (thanks a lot, my job) I've been putting it off forever and indefinitely. Which sucks on occasion, but I have two stopgap solutions. One is an anti-inflammatory sort of cough syrup/ sort of mouthwash bottle that reduces the swelling, the second is a more dramatic gelcap type thing that is used in extreme cases, in pill form.

By the time we were ready to go out, my jaw had noticeably grown in size, to the point where you could actually see it. That's not a good sign, in general. But whatever, I was determined to go out, dammit. I threw down some of solution number one and hit the bar.

It was some good times. We only spent about two hours or so out on the town, watching people butchering as much karaoke as possible while I continuously downed Shiner after Shiner. Now, I did not have that much to drink. Well, more than I would have on a normal night, but nothing out of line. Or so I thought. I was pretty actively drunk by the end of the night. And somewhere along the 30 minute mark, I lost whatever pain I was feeling in my jaw and decided that it would be a good idea to exercise my mouth as much as possible. So there was a lot of singing along going on, especially by the last few minutes of the night. Good times and all that jazz.

In any case, so we pack into the car just after 1:00, so I can get home and be ready for work at like 7:00 in the morning. We make it halfway to my house before I am violently ill in the backseat. Now, I have enough presence of mind to at least get my head out of the side window beforehand. This is marginally better than what could have resulted. Sort of like having a safe land just on your foot, rather than your head. Not only am I drunk on a Thursday night and I've vomited out the window of a moving car, I have now coated a dear friend's car in my internal workings.

(Speaking of which, Devon is the most awesome person in the world. Witness the next day -

Jason: I am sooooo sorry.
Devon: Oh please, don't worry about it. It's not the first time I've washed vomit off the side of my car at one o'clock in the morning. And it won't be the last.

I love her.)

So I'm rocking this night so far, right? We get to my house, I wander inside. Still very drunk, but coming down quickly now that everything is gone from my system. Suddenly, my jaw is aching. Soooo bad. Within 20 minutes or so, I realize that, drunk or not, this is a level of tooth pain that I haven't dealt with in a long long time. Right here, I completely lose track of my rational thought processes. I look back now and I can find no explanation for what I end up doing. I wasn't THAT drunk. I was in a lot of pain, but I should be able to think. Apparently not.

So I go and down a bit of solution number two for toothaches.

No, I really shouldn't have. The drug interaction is almost immediate, and it is horrible. That night, I took the concept of vomiting to an entirely new plane. For a rough estimate, I took the pill sometime around 2:00, probably a touch earlier. It wasn't until 4:00 that I can consciously remember stopping. And even then, I was still doing it occasionally, once every 15 minutes or so, as the spirit took me, so to speak.

I woke up at 6:45 am. I was on my couch, with my head hanging off the side. I had a plastic bag in one hand and my face was at all times less than a foot from it. I look up and the television is on, tuned to the Christian Evangelical Network and there is some guy waving a Bible in my general direction.

Somehow, I made it to work on time, knowing that I had to go in, since everyone else was out sick with the flu and I had the only key to the office. I quite possibly have never felt as bad as I did on that morning in my entire life. But I even managed to pick up the Starbucks for the meeting they were holding at 9:00.

I thought I could handle it. After all, it was my own fault for drinking. It wasn't a hangover, per se, since the main problem was a drug interaction, but still, one reaps what one sows. I make it until about 9:30 when I take a drink of water and the final two remaining alcohol molecules collide with the remaining two tooth-drug atoms left in my weakened stomach.

Jason (on the phone): So then all we'll need are a couple more documents from you...[takes drink. Pause one beat.] Can you hold? [Jason hits hold. Then vomits yet again, this time into a nearby trashcan. One more beat. Wipes mouth.] Okay, sorry about that. We'll need a copy of...

I mean, who does that? I have officially become the most pathetic person on the planet.

In any case, I ended up going home pretty soon after that, since the meeting ended and no one else was in the office and my boss didn't have anything else for me to do. I then slept all day long and spent the entire weekend in a fugue state. I literally pulled a muscle in my chest/shoulder during the heave-fest and had to wince every time I took a deep breath. Heck, it still sort of hurts right now.

So yeah. Lesson learned. Alcohol and drugs are bad mm'kay?

Sorry for subjecting you to all that. But I feel much relieved now that it's all out there. No secrets between us, right, baby?