Fucked-up behavior Part 1: Vazi the Vomiter.
When it comes to alcohol consumption I am a lightweight. This admission makes me sad because I have long been a dedicated fan of the booze. Between the ages of 17 and 22 I mainly consumed Romanov vodka with Seven Up, Kingfisher beer, and Old Monk dark rum with coke. My drinking practice focused on keeping costs down so I would drink the cheapest quality product at the fastest possible speed. The problem with this system was that it usually gave me the old I-am-having-the-time-of-my-motherfucking-life feeling for about 20 minutes and then I would projectile vomit and pass out.
Not willing to accept any responsibility for this I usually blamed the type of alcohol.
Beer doesn’t agree with me. I would announce as I flung one vodka shot after another down my gullet only to be met with the exact same result.
Then I tried to blame the quality of the goods.
That Old Monk crap is the worst! Were the last words I would remember screaming loudly before throwing up three perfectly good Bacardi & Coke combos.
Yes I was that girl. I was Vazi the Vomiter – a title I have managed to hang on to through the years.
As time went by I found that it was beneficial to slow it down somewhat. I discovered that by sipping gently on a drink I could achieve the same warm and fuzzy feeling. Yes, it was slightly delayed but it would actually last longer. The problem I had however was this. Half way through the second drink I would forget to sip gently and by drink #4 my friends had to help me stagger to the loo and back where I would do my worst. This pushed my friend Ruchika to remark that I was beginning to get to be a bit of encumbrance and my friend Gautam to ask me if I wasn’t too old for this type of thing. Fuck them – I was 24 – I wasn’t too old. Besides I had moved from a 3 drink max to a 4 drink max. But how was I to move to a respectable 5 drink max and more importantly how was I to keep these drinks in my system overnight?
These matters plagued me. From a genetic stand point it was unfair that I even had such problems because my father is from Goa. I shouldn’t have to say much more but for those of you who are not aware – Goans can drink. If we had a drinking contest in India the Goan representative would win. And if he or she lost it would be to a Kodava – another tribe of maniacal drinkers. My mother is half Kodava. I am three quarters alcohol yet I was unable to get past a 4 drink max. Granted these drinks were what we called ‘large pegs’ – and they were quite large – but I was surrounded by friends who could drink much, much more. How was I to keep up with them?
They say that the answers to life’s biggest questions quite often are right in front of you.
What’s the matter with you? My father asked on Sunday morning as I sat listlessly at the dining table trying not to hurl at the sight of two fried eggs. I had had a particularly vicious bout the night before.
Nothing. I lied.
Look at this idiot mother she looks sick. My dad always calls my mother ‘mother’ when he is snitching on me to her.
I’m not sick. I’m just tired is all. I croaked. The last thing I needed was for my parents to figure out that their daughter was the resident puke queen. Please don’t let them find what I did in the flower bed I prayed as I sipped on some water.
I looked up to see my father regarding me with a look of pure disgust.
Why don’t you buggers eat something before you get juiced up? He asked before returning to his wheat germ and bran concoction that he had lovingly laced with raisins, almonds and prunes.
This rhetoric question was the answer I had been searching for. While I did not appreciate being referred to as ‘bugger’ and while I rarely took any advice he handed out I did take note of his point. He was after all an expert drinker himself. So the following weekend I tried out his theory and sure enough – no more up-chuck. I had beaten the system and was on my way to a 5 drink max! This was a huge achievement because it enabled me to stay up and enjoy not only Saturday night but Sunday morning as well.
This new frontier coincided with my finding a boy-friend. I met him in The Black Cadillac (my watering hole of choice right through my 20s). It also coincided with my discovery that a 5 drink max was peanuts. You see around the time my boy-friend fell in love with me also fell in love with my friend Anuli. Here is why – Anuli was one of those annoying women with good legs and an incredible capacity to hold her liquor. She could drink with the boys and the boys drank whiskey, compared to that my rum and coke was merely decoration. I was going to have to enter her world if I was to compete.
But as hard as I tried I could not stomach whiskey. I preferred sweeter bevies and it is some sort of stupid rule that you are not allowed to mix whiskey with coke. I tried doing that on several occasions and always got the dirtiest looks from all the whiskey drinkers. I have no idea why whiskey drinkers take themselves so bloody seriously but they do. Their unspoken hate would fill the room as they watched me contaminate their beloved potion with coca cola and I knew what they are thinking – FUCKING LIGHTWEIGHT.
hellloooo rads
mallus when it comes to drinks??
Jebby I feel like thatmay just be your family!
my new mantra:
have smalls, not larges. you’ll end up having the same number of drinks anyway, but this way, you’ll be able to see the next morning.
and btw. i never said you were an encumbrance. or did i? was prob too drunk to remember:)