How many hangovers did you have this weekend? Two? If you’re anything like me, you had two. And that’s pretty much one hundred percent of your weekend ruined.
Because a real hangover can destroy a day. You know all about the horrible ones, the ones where you writhe in bed trying to find a sole position that can accommodate all the conflicting agony within you. A spot that keeps your skull from feeling like a switchblade is protruding out and keeps the gin sloshing about your stomach from ending up on your down quilt. Even if you do find that position, it’s a tease. You’ll eventually need to leave it, because if you don’t get food and drugs in your system in the next 25 minutes, you will die.
We don’t want you to die. In fact, we want you to thrive. What if I told you I had the hangover cure, one that will tackle even the worst head-throbber, without having to chug gallons of awful water the night before?
This cure came to me spontaneously after a hangover which was slightly more horrific than all of the war-based atrocities ever committed by mankind. I promise it will work for you.
1. Take Three Advil Liqui-Gels: This is the only hangover medication you should use. Advil’s little brown circles? Placebos. Tylenol is what parents give their four-year-olds when they run a fever. It’s gotta be Advil Liqui-Gels or, if you have it, Oxycontin. Please don’t fret about the pseudoscience saying ibuprofen shouldn’t be mixed with alcohol. It can. I do it on a daily basis. And take more than two. Two is the recommended dosage. But you didn’t scrape your knee. You had six Tuaca Bombs. You’ve earned more.
2. Eat Chewable Pepto-Bismol: You know that pink glop you swig to stop shitting your face off while hiking in Mozambique? They make it in these delicious chewable tabs you can inhale until your stomach starts hurting. If you don’t have any, they are sold in individual packets (alongside Advil Liqui-Gels) at every 7-11. So you are never more than a mile away from help. Plus you’ll now be out of bed and in a car. Which is good because our next step requires driving.
3. Get A Double Espresso: Once upon a time a group of science experts began pushing the myth that caffeine worsens hangovers. Something about constricting blood vessels. I am going on record today to say that one day we will consider these people worse than eugenicists.
Caffeine is essential. You didn’t sleep well. You are tired. Those traits scream coffee. But there is a liter of ShockTop swirling about your stomach. (Wait, why were you drinking ShockTop … on draft?) You need coffee without the volume. Espresso. Ideally this would be from a French bistro because one, they make it best, and two, step four requires you to be at a French bistro.
4. Eat French Onion Soup: Good French Onion Soup. Not microwaveable Lipton’s. You probably live in a city and there is an abundance of French places open. (I can’t help you if you live in a rural area. Maybe eat some grits and thrash a field until sundown?) French Onion Soup is made for hangovers. Hot salty beef broth. An entire loaf of bread stuffed inside. Caramelized onions. It took someone an hour to make those onions. Just for you. And rock hard melted Gruyere cheese.
What more do you want?
5. Drink Two German Lagers: By now you feel good. Let’s feel great. What sounds better than a crisp, cold German beer? Bitburger perhaps. German beer is about the best thing you can put in your body. It’s refined. Pure. Only four ingredients. It’s basically Vitamin Water. Not only will two perfectly hydrate you, the beer will make you happy enough to forget whatever it was that made you feel so awful this morning.
What was that, again? Oh right. A hangover. Eff those.
[Hangover via Shutterstock]