One day we'll look back on this and laugh, and that day is today!

-click the title to see this story in photograph form-

Last night Megan and I had an ingenious idea. Well, it seemed ingenious at the time. Bryan had to drive to Nashville and we couldn't go along with him so we were pretty much left with nothing to do. This is when the epiphany occurs: we can put vodka in water bottles and wander through the park downtown drinking. We won't worry about driving home, we'll just stay there until Bryan drives back into Huntsville late and get him to pick us up. Genius, right? This is why I am the self-proclaimed and never challenged perpetrator of bad ideas.

We go and get another liter of vodka because there was barely two shots in the liter we still had and then we get some of those old timey glass bottle Dr. Peppers to use as chasers. Unfortunately, 16.9 ounces of vodka requires more than 12 ounces of Dr. Pepper. Which meant that after we started drinking we'd need to go into a bar and order some sodas to make up for the difference.

We get to the park and set the plan in motion, preparing our sickening cocktails. Then we go and sit in the gazebo where we struggle for ten minutes to open our glass Dr. Peppers before beginning to drink and take stupid photos. After about three shots we decide to make our way towards a local bar that's about four blocks away on the square. Voodoo Lounge. This seems the perfect plan, my friend James is playing there tonight, it's a19 and up venue so I can get in but I just can't drink.

On the way, we stop at a few strategic locations to drink some more and take more photographs. There are actually pictures of us drinking on the steps on the courthouse. Pure insanity.

Once we get to Voodoo things take a turn to the dark side. I quit matching Megan drink for drink because I can tell I'm on the verge of driving the porcelain bus. She ends up finishing off her bottle of "water" (a whole half liter of vodka) while we're there. Most everything else is quite foggy. I remember talking to people and dancing. I remember James playing. I remember Megan being drunk enough to knock things off the table. So I pick up our shit and tell her, "Let's leave. We need to go!"

Where I thought we were going, I have no idea. I just knew that even though we did know the bartender there that us making a scene could still lead to trouble. As we go up the steps (Voodoo Lounge is an underground bar) Meg loses her shoe and a nice girl named Blair (I think) helps me pick up the stuff I'm dropping out of my purse and hands me Megan's shoe. Megan meanwhile is crawling up the stairs and out the door and won't come and sit on the bench. She crawls out into the street and rolls around on the curb. I'm just sitting propped up against this little newspaper kiosk telling these very sober guys that are trying to get her back on the sidewalk to "just bring her over here, she be alright.... just... just..."

Bryan had called as we were getting out the door of the bar. He had went to our friend Mindy's where we had been earlier, looking for us, and Mindy told him simply, "Oh, they went to get trashed in the park." He calls, worried, wanting to know where we are and when I tell him he says he'll come get us. So really I just want Megan to come sit down, our ride is coming.

And then the cop pulls up. At this point, I'm far too drunk to even attempt to feign sobriety and I am also still under 21 and, in retrospect, believe that if the cop asked how I got alcohol, I'd blurt the whole story out in one long sentence. There I am sitting with an empty water bottle and one about a third still full of vodka, wondering why I have Meg's shoe and where my Dr. Pepper went when the cop arrives. I leave the bottles and her shoe and try to walk away and sober looking as possible.

As soon I get around the corner I call Bryan and tell him that the cops showed up but that Megan should be cool because there's no shady appearance to walking out of a bar, when you are legal drinking age, drunk. I tell him I'm going to hide and he needs to go pick her up and call me when he's got her.

Somehow I end up at Constitution Village which is basically a fake 19th century village and museum type area. I sit down on the steps, drunk. Then I decide I'm too much in plain sight so I get under the bush. Then the vomit comes. I have no idea how much I puked. I was on the phone at the time as well and all the shit in my purse kept falling out.

Bryan finally calls. They're taking Megan to the hospital. She at some point fell and busted her chin and he wants to know where I am. All I can muster is, "bush."

"Bush where?!"
"I'm at Constitution Village."
"Why don't you go somewhere that I know where it is."
-I vomit some more-
"Cassidy?"
"Mm-hmm"
"Go where I can see you."
"Nuh-uh."
"Why not?"
"Then they can see me."
-then I hear Bryan's obnoxiously loud car and am able to steer him to where I am-

Most of the getting in the car and the talking to Bryan is pretty fuzzy. The next thing I can really recall is hanging out of the passenger side of his car, puking, while him and his dad talk about how the cable guy needs to come out and fix the satellite cable. Andrew (Bryan's 15 year-old brother that we take out drinking quite often and Megan and I so affectionately call 'Baby Bear') brings me bread to try and soak up the alcohol.

I'm far past bread being of any help. My whole body is numb. I eat it anyway. It was yummy. I go inside and vomit some more vodka and then I begin to vomit my yummy bread. I eventually end up laying on Bryan's living room floor talking to his mother about Barack Obama while Bryan heads to the ER to check on Megan.

She was O.K. No stitches. No stomach pump. She faired well for a bout of alcohol poisoning and a wound from a drunken fall. But the whole time he was there she was still blacked out so they couldn't discharge her. Bryan came home at about 5 AM and gave a still very drunk me the update.

Also he filled in some of the blanks of the night. Somehow in the five minutes between me wandering off and him driving up, another cop car, a fire truck, and an ambulance came to Voodoo Lounge to get Megan. Megan, at this time, could not remember her last name and told the cop that she was 19. Megan is 21. She is very much 21. So much 21 that she bought the shitty vodka. But... she had given me her ID at the beginning of the night to put in my purse and at this time I am under a bush, throwing up.

We're all alright though. She's out of the hospital and currently at Bryan's house laughing at the photos I took of her rolling around in the downtown streets. I'm alright, too. A bit hungover and my insides are so toxic my piss looks like highlighter. But it's a great story.

The ice cream on top? According to www.canidriveyet.com neither of our blood alcohol content levels are going to be low enough to be considered complete sobriety until at least 6 AM tomorrow.

Can I drive yet?

Megan:
Your blood alcohol content is 0.376

Wait 17 hours before driving

You have 22 hours until total sobriety

BAC: 0.376. How are you still alive? You should be dead with a BAC this high. Call a doctor.

Me:
Your blood alcohol content is 0.282

Wait 20 hours before driving

You have 28 hours until total sobriety

BAC: 0.282. By law it is illegal for you to drive. Stop drinking and check again in 20 hours

Unfortunately, I did not drunk text anyone last night. In Voodoo, with it being underground, I have no signal and by the time I was out of there I was too drunk to recognize the difference in my phone and Megan's shoe. James did call when he finished his set. I was in Bryan's car at the time. James wanted to know if we were alright. James is sort of an alcoholic, so we must have been in a bad sort to prompt him to check up on us.