BAR HAVOC: RIGHT HOME AFTER WORK

Waking up on Sunday I knew something was amiss. Roll over. Look at the clock. 3:41 p.m. FUCK. Head fuzzy, yet not pounding. Tolerable. The haze clears and it all comes back to me. Oh no, I got drunk last night. Not just a little drunk, but like …

crying in public, fired from your job, relationship-ruining, go to jail drunk.

I don’t know what to check first, my cell phone, my Twitter, my Facebook … I can’t face anything. I want to go back to sleep but I have somehow managed to sleep away the morning and the afternoon, and I have to be at work in two hours.

Damage repair/life assessment … GO.

HOUR 1: 3:41pm. I roll over and land on my laptop. I’m impressed. No Twitter or Facebook statuses—success! What was I doing before I went to bed if I wasn’t sabotaging my own life on Twitter? Oh. I see. I was watching a full 45 minute nature special on two British men who raised a lion and then let him loose in the wild, as well as all of John Cena’s 2002 wrestling matches.

My cheeks burn. I’m even embarrassed to be seen in front of my cat right now.

I don’t know if I should tell no one or everyone. I prop myself up and watch John Cena’s 2002 match against Kurt Angle again. I save it to favorites and get out of bed.

HOUR 2: 4:41 p.m. I remember my phone. Always a problem, something I wish someone would take away from me while I have been drinking. I wince looking at my texts. A few numbers I don’t recognize and a strange e-mail from a kid named Jordan. A text to someone saying I want him in my bed. This person was uninterested, and instead of dropping the subject, I call him lame.

Apparently it’s not over until they hate me, and if there’s one thing I’m good at while drinking, it’s beating a dead horse.

I make a mental note to delete it so I don’t have to look at it, but I don’t and I know I probably won’t. I also have about four “what are you up to tonight” texts from friends as well as a “where the hell are you, you said you were coming home after work,” text from my roommate. All of those texts went unanswered,

since the only technology I know how to manage when I’m drunk is the kind that ruins things.

HOUR 3: 5:41 p.m. Showered and on my way to work. New lease on life. Feeling pretty good, all things considered. I walk into the bar and when I look up, everyone is grinning. “How were you feeling this morning?” John asks, smirking while checking IDs.

“I saw you?” I mumble back, suddenly ashamed.

“Man, you were tanked,” one of the servers says. “You were yelling, then you were crying, then you were eating … I thought you said you were going right home after work!” I cringe and wish I were back in bed. My headache kicks in. Fuck.

HOUR 10: 12:41 a.m. One of our servers, Danielle, has been cut early. She’s on her fifth stoli cherry and coke and she’s been talking about relationships. She’s a little wobbly and suddenly I notice her eyes fill with tears. I grin and give her a squeeze; I’ve been there and I hate to see my friend cry.

Gotta love this industry. With every night’s new adventure, the prior evenings’ will be forgotten.

By the time I get home Sunday evening, Saturday night’s debacle won’t even be a blip on my radar. This next week will be different though. I swear it. I promise I’ll do better. I promise I’ll go right home after work.