Sometimes I wish I could still drink. Really drink. It would be so nice to release myself into oblivion. To medicate myself so just for a few moments so I wouldn’t be obsessing about my life. To have a little ease.
But no, one drink goes straight to my bloodstream. Two and I’m the life of the party. Three and I’m crying in my beer while listening to “WildFire” or being irritated and impatient and suddenly disappearing from wherever I was just having a good time.
But my inability to handle alcohol happened many years after this story. When this story happened, I was quite the drinker. I partied every day of the week. It was the Good, the Bad, and the French Fried.
I once told this story in a comedy writing class I was taking with Gotham Writers. I thought the story was hilarious. The teacher thought it was sad and not funny at all. I suspect whether it’s funny or sad depends upon the readers background. I tend to find it funny because it’s amazing to me that I’m STILL ALIVE. For me, that fact is a miracle.
So, take it however you take it. It makes no difference to me.
Sigonella, Sicily
I was in the Navy and stationed at Sigonella, Sicily. It’s not an easy culture, but the food was prime.
Since I didn’t have much of a childhood, the Navy was my childhood and I partied and got into trouble just as gleefully as a one-year-old does while exploring gravity by pushing everything off their high chair tray or throwing things.
The club on base was my home away from home. It was there I met up with all my peeps. Unlike the Army and Air Force, the Navy and Marines encouraged us to stay on base to do our partying. We were the derelicts of the armed forces and we needed to be contained.
I was there almost every night.
But then, One Day…
I was at the club feeling hurt, for reasons I no longer remember, and crying in my beer to the tune “Seven Spanish Angels”. I was sitting by myself, wearing a toga, feeling not included because no one noticed just how dejected I was.
Eventually I accepted that no one cared so I might as well have some fun. I got roaring drunk and remember hardly anything that happened the rest of that night at the club.
I do remember going into the DJs booth, having the DJ get beeped, being told that he had to leave, being shown a few buttons for the DJ sound system and being left in charge of it. The club desperately searched for a replacement as I annoyed the hell out of the crowd by playing my own favorites rather than what they expected. Fleetwood Mac and Bread are just not partying music. It was a fun half hour before they found someone who could relieve me.
But that’s not the story I’m here to tell…
Oh, and the pair of panties someone lost on the dance floor? THEY WERE NOT MINE! A lot of people thought they were mine but I’m just not in the habit of removing my panties in the middle of a dance floor.
But that’s not the story either…
Part One:
“Etna” by MacSlacky is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0
The story begins in the middle, when I went home that night. I wasn’t living on base at the time, rather I was living in Motta Sant’ Anastasia, at the base of the active volcano Mount. Etna. A very kind and worried friend of mine drove me home in my own car and then slept on the couch.
I remember this, and going to bed..
Part Two:
This part I have no recollection of. This is what I was told.
My roommate Flo and her boyfriend were in her bedroom, making whoopie, when a naked Karin wandered into her room, breaking up the festivities.
I sat down on the ground, put my feet on her backpack, grabbed the handles of the backpack and apparently tried to put up the covers of my imaginary blanket. There I am trying really hard to achieve my goal, pulling on the backpacks handles, slowly scooting backwards, yapping about the “Goddamn Blanket.”
I finally made it far enough to smack my head on the wardrobe, before Flo’s boyfriend suggested that maybe she should help me back to my room.
By this time, I’d given up on succeeding with “the damn blanket” and had Flo’s nightgown around my neck. She tried to help me back to my bed but I took a couple of swings at her citing “too many damn people in my bedroom.”
Now I can see just how pathetic this story actually it, but it still cracks me up. I’m easily entertained.
They finally just gave me a pillow and a blanket and just left me on the floor.
Part Three:
It’s four in the morning and I’m being shook awake. There’s Flo and her boyfriend standing over me.
“Karin, your alarm clock is going off, do you need to get up?”
“Where am I?”
“In my room.”
I looked under the blanket.
“Where’d my clothes go?”
“I have no idea.”
Funny or Not?
Is this a funny story or not? I think it’s funny as hell. I also think it’s pretty pathetic and clearly, I had some issues. But considering my childhood, and the fact that I’m still alive, it’s more of a survival story to me. It’s me pointing, “Look! See how fucked up I was? And I’m STILL ALIVE! All the doubters can go to hell!” It’s funny to me because it’s ridiculous, insane, and true. And really, Honesty is what comedy is about.
Sometimes I wish I could drink like I used to. I still want to ease my pain. But I also think one bad drunken Karin story is enough. I know that my inability to hold my alcohol is a blessing. A Gift. I maybe have half a dozen drinks a year, and that’s usually enough to remind me why I don’t drink so much anymore. But still…
Sometime I wish I could still drink…
