Ocassionally I've been known to be a hyprocrite. It's not something that I thrive on or even do often, but once in awhile I do something where I end up just completely eating my words. Just a couple weekends ago, I did that very thing, and let me be the first person to tell you that I'm a huge, monster, gigantic hypocrite for it. Really, you don't even have to know me to know that I did something I've talked trash about in the past, because I've written about it several times within this very section. Actually, only the second piece I ever wrote for the site was on the subject. I also wrote about another time in college when I'd had a letdown and done the very thing that I railed against.

In case you didn't feel like reading the previous pieces and / or don't feel like reading my mind, I'll just go ahead and tell you that I got completely drunk a couple weekends ago. Due to a set of completely strange circumstances and a bit of an odd decision on my part, I not only ended up drinking more than one full beer for the first time in my life, but got completely blitzed for only the second time ever as well. Below lies the story of the fateful evening.

During the previous week, some friends of mine I'd known since high-school gave me a ring and asked me what I was going to do on Saturday night. I didn't have any plans and hadn't seen any of them in quite some time, so I decided it would be good to hang out with all of them for once. We were going to meet at 10:30 at one of their apartments and decide what was going to happen from there.

At about 9:30 that night, I got a call from one of them at their place of employment. They were just getting ready to leave and I was told to arrive at the previously planned time of 10:30. When I asked what was going down for the evening, I was told that the three of them were going to play a little drinking game called the "Century Club." Upon further inquiry, I learned that it was really much more simple than a game. Instead of having any rules or anything like that, the only object of the whole thing was to do 100 beer shots in 100 minutes time. I winced at the thought (after all, I don't really like beer at all), but thought that I'd still have some fun chatting with them all and watching them get silly.

10:30 rolled around and I biked over the apartment which was only about three-quarters of a mile from mine. The night was fairly cool, but they were already there and we had several minutes of catching up to do when I arrived. After just talking for awhile, the "Century Club" was brought up again and I again said that I was going to have to pass on it all. Not only were they doing beer shots, but the beer that one of them had purchased was near the bottom of the chain in terms of quality. I won't mention the exact brand, but I will say that the slogan written on the can was, It's The Water (a simple statement which would induce many a laughs later on in the evening).

Instead of beer, I figured that I might make myself a mix drink or two and keep the time for them, but there was yet another person coming over from their work to do that for us. In only the course of about 10 minutes time, I went from being adamantly against doing any such thing to deciding that I was in with them. It was partially due to seeing friends I hadn't seen in quite some time and wanting to join in on the fun and partially a by-product of the screwed-up emotions I'd been going through over the course of the past couple months (to explain them all here would take several more pages so I'll spare you the gory details). Anyway, once I said that I was in, the roof was raised. Everyone was pumped. The non-drinker (me) was going to join in the festivities.

Just before the time keeper arrived, the shot glasses were placed at the table and a couple beers were cracked open and sat down in front of where each person would be sitting. Just to make things a little more fair, the other three fellows who'd had a bit more experience drinking took 1.5 ounce shot glasses while they gave me the lightweight version (.75 ounce). Before we started, we figured that if we were all to make it, they would drink just over 13 beers in 100 minutes while I would end up finishing just over 7. We all knew that we could drop out at any point and not catch too much crap for it, and I still couldn't believe that I was going to go through with it.

The scorekeeper arrived and started us up within a few minutes of settling in. The first 20 or so were a breeze for everyone, but soon afterward, several of us actually started feeling it. By about 50, I could really feel things getting swervy on me and by 70 I was feeling completely off my rocker. Of course, by 70 or so, one of the three had already gone to the bathroom to yack once and come back for more (I don't quite understand why).

At 75, I went out into the middle of the living room and started dancing. The physical activity was strange to me, yet I didn't feel too unsteady on my feet. I then said the oft-quoted line of "If I can still dance, I'm not that drunk." A couple pictures were snapped and the record that was playing ran out so I dug deep into my friends collection and pulled out his old Adam Ant Friend Of Foe LP that I had given him one year for his birthday and played "Goodie Two Shoes." By the time it started spinning, we all did another shot, then everyone started singing along. It was quite a funny moment, and given the lyrics of the song, made things even more surreal.

At about 80, one of my friends dropped out and everyone else hung on for dear life to the remaining bit of sober-ness that they had (well, actually a couple people weren't trying that hard to hold on). When the count reached 90, the other two had drank nearly twice as much as me, but over 6 beers was still a damn ton given the fact that my other previous high was 1 and I usually only drank alcohol once a month or so. By the time that we reached 100, there was a veritable wall of beer cans in the corner of the room and everyone there besides the time keeper was completely blitzed. It was an environment that I'd made fun of many times before, but it wasn't bothering me at that point. After a bit of goofy cheering and hooraying, we all sat down for a bit while one person made their way to the restroom to throw up.

Within only 30 minutes, the scene had changed from one of everyone drunk and happy to one of everyone drunk and several people throwing up. I surprisingly still felt pretty good as long as I was moving around, and helped people to the bathroom and kept checking on everyone to make sure that they were doing OK. An hour after everything had finished, the time keeper had gone home, one person was on the living room floor with a garbage can, one person was in the bathroom in front of the toilet and one was in the bedroom tanked out on the bed.

I was walking around constantly, bouncing from room to room checking on everyone to make sure that they were still doing fine and nobody had thrown up in a spot that wasn't easily cleanable (although I still wouldn't have touched the mess if someone had). About 1.5 hours after we had finished the 100 mark, almost everyone was sleeping and I really needed to get home. After one last check with everyone, I said my goodbyes and headed out the door with my bike in tow to my apartment.

After walking a block beside my bike, I decided that I felt good enough to actually ride the thing. It was really cool out and the air seemed to sober me up as the further I went along in it. Although I didn't feel completely ace, I felt sober enough to not ram into a parked car or anything else. Fortunately for me, the streets were almost completely deserted and I made it home without any problems.

Once inside, I quickly shedded my clothes and went for the bathroom. Just about the time that I was stepping into the shower, though, I felt a rumbling in my stomach that wasn't exactly normal. Pulling my foot out of the shower, I sat down on the edge of the tub naked and wondered whether the feeling would pass.

Instead of passing, though, the feeling only got worse as I sat there. I tried to measure my breathing a little bit more and calm down, hoping that it would just go away and I could get on with my shower and go to sleep without incident. I wasn't going to get out of this one, though, and the feeling got progressively worse and worse and eventually I knew that it was inevitable.

I rolled off the tub where I was sitting and threw up into the toilet until there was nothing left but dry heaving. My mouth was burning from the stomach acid, I was slightly sweaty from the lurching of my body, yet the only thing I could do was laugh. I sat there on the floor naked at 3 in the morning and laughed and laughed. I spit into the toilet a couple more times and finally got into the shower and cleaned off. After I finished and dried off, I brushed my teeth and decided to go to bed.

As I laid there before sleeping, my head was still kind of spinning from the whole evening. I felt kind of stupid for having put myself through the whole ordeal, but decided that the last thing I should do was regret it. It was just one of those weird things, and that was about it. Sure, I was a hypocrite, but I was part of the "Century Club."

OK, so that's a bad thing, but at least I don't do it every weekend.

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