I am not a good drunk.
Never have been, never will be. In college I used to black out like nobody’s business at least four nights a week, but now I generally avoid shots like the plague because I know after one or two (or maybe six or eight, who’s counting?) I get sloppier than Tara Reid’s plastic surgeon.
This story isn’t about how I actually handled my liquor decently well on a Saturday night though, it’s about how I tanked my boyfriend’s Uber rating down to a one-star the morning after drinking.
You see, while my friends know me as an infamous blackout, my boyfriend instead knows me for my hangovers because all I do is dry heave, dry heave some more (I almost never puke the morning after drinking), then guilt him into buying me McDonald’s so I feel better. Sunday was no exception: we woke up at 11:00 and the first thing out of my mouth was “Let’s go eat cheesesteaks!”
Easy enough request, yes? As I’m getting dressed for our adventure I dry heave once or twice, but as I said that’s nothing really out of the ordinary. 20 minutes or so later, we’re in an Uber on our way to Gluttonville, population: Cheesesteaks.
Except that’s when it hits me.
For the first 15 minutes or so of the ride we were stuck in traffic and our top speed was never more than 10 mph. I’m sort of nauseous at this point but like I said, I only dry heaved twice – that’s unheard of for me. That’s like Ramsay Bolton chopping his own dick off, putting a leash around his neck and handing it to Theon, saying “Okay that was fun, now it’s your turn to do me!” – it never, ever fucking happens. Which is why I thought I was in the clear…that is, until we make it out of traffic and the car begins to pick up speed.
You know that feeling in the pit of your stomach where it’s like someone is twisting your gut 360 degrees in their fist, then letting it go and watching it rapidly twirl back around? You know the vomit is coming, but at this point you think you can hold it in because the hot sweats haven’t hit yet…except oh wait, there they are! I’ve now reached the point of no return and have three options: ask the driver to pull over so I can puke, puke IN the Uber or stick my head outside the window of the Uber and puke.
I weakly ask, “Sir, can you pull over?”
I wait five seconds. No response.
Okay, fine – I now only have TWO options.
So I stick my head out the window and let it spew.
This is really just a rhetorical question so I can continue with my story, but have you ever thought to yourself “What the hell am I doing with my life?” Of course you have – but probably when you were younger. When you were in college, throwing up in your freshman dorm after your first night of heavy drinking, or maybe after coming home from a dead-end job one night that you only took so you could pay the bills.
In other words, it was probably not at 11:40 in the morning, on a Sunday in broad daylight, puking out the window of an Uber while watching said vomit fly all over the side of the car and into the windshield of the car behind you.
Coincidentally, the car behind us was also an Uber, and upon being painted with the remnants of last night’s Indian food he sped up next to us so I could get flipped off. ‘Twas a nice touch really – I now have a small amount of puke in my hair, my boyfriend yelling at me and a large, angry Hispanic man flipping me off outside my window.
He’s not really that important to the story though. What IS important is that once we got back to my boyfriend’s place I ran inside, grabbed a wet towel and some soap and cleaned that Uber off until it was spick and span…well, mostly spick and span. I feel bad for whoever opened the driver side rear door next, but I apologized a thousand times and tipped him all the cash in my wallet (it was only $5, but at this point I don’t know how you expect a failure like me to carry more than janky-ass $1’s anyway).
I FINALLY get my cheesesteak and during lunch I realize I don’t have my phone on me. “Weird,” I think, “I probably left it at the house.”
(Spoiler alert: it’s not at the house.)
We get back and I try calling it.
No sound of it anywhere.
But at this point I was in denial and wanted to pretend my life wasn’t one big joke, so I told myself it was on silent somewhere and that I’d find it later. If not, oh well – I would rather drop bills on a new phone than face that Uber driver again. Hours later, in one final last-ditch attempt to try and find my phone, I call it again…
…and the Uber driver picks up.
Fuck. Me.
I just realized that I never described this guy earlier, so for the sake of your imagination picture an OG Russian mafia guy in his late 60’s with an accent thicker than molasses and a haircut like Mr. Clean’s. How do I know he’s in the Russian mafia aside from his accent? Obviously I don’t, but I’m going to pretend he is because it makes my Uber puke less big of a deal. Some hungover white bitch throwing up on your car ain’t shit when you’ve been drinking Vodka like water and stabbin’ people for 40 years.
This description is important, because otherwise you wouldn’t understand why I couldn’t understand a single friggin’ word the guy said over the phone and I would look like an even bigger dumbass than I already am.
“Ha-llo?”
“Hi, I left my phone in your Uber earlier today?”
“Ah yes, fjelwjafeowahieow;htoewtwe, text jeklwjewleowjieoww.”
“You want me to text my address to my phone?”
“No. Rerljewori;ejwr, fjkewljewj griwojwo 4488484.”
“So…text it to your phone?”
“392045832974923!”
“….ok.”
I write down his number and text him my address. I don’t get a response because I am a moron and wrote the number down wrong. So I call again.
“3482974329749234792, fjewklfjew; 33333.”
Somehow I get it right this time and finally send him my address. He says he’ll be here in 15 minutes.
My attitude of “Hooray, I’m getting my phone back!” quickly turns to “Oh fuck, I’m getting my phone back” once I realize I’m going to have to face the Uber driver whose car I just puked all over a few hours later. And because I am a slippery, slimy little weasel of a human being, I ask my boyfriend if he’ll go out and meet him to get my phone.
“No.”
Okay, FINE – because I am a slippery, slimy little weasel of a human being, I ask my boyfriend’s roommate if he’ll go out and meet the Uber driver for me. I sweeten the pot by offering to give him $15.
For those of you keeping track at home: I am now paying someone to walk 10 feet outside his house, grab a phone for me and bring it back. I also gave him $20 to give the driver once he got here, because while I am obviously a piece of shit I am not the devil.
The guy gets here about 30 minutes later and the swap goes down fine. I get my phone back and all is well.
…but this would be a pretty lame story if it just ended there, right?
Obviously.
It’s now about 9:00 at night and I’ve eaten one philly cheesesteak with extra meat, a large fry, half a bag of jalapeno potato chips and at least half a tray of crab dip. This past month I tried out this little trend called “clean eating” and Sunday was my cheat day. If I had been wearing a button-down shirt all the buttons would’ve popped off cartoon-style, yet despite the ending of this story this is real life and not a cartoon, so instead of exploding into a fiery ball of flame my stomach was merely gurgling strangely. It’s time for me to go home.
I call an Uber, and NO it’s not the same guy – if only I were so lucky. I picked “Uber Pool” instead of getting my own personal car because I’m cheap, and as fate would have it we end up picking up two girls on my way home. They’re dressed all fancy and look like they’re going someplace important.
Then the cold sweat breaks out again.
My stomach is boiling itself into knots and my mind instantly flashes back to Puke-a-palooza 2k16 this morning. I’m determined: there is no way in minty-clean hell that I am going to puke in two separate Ubers on the same day. There is no way my life is that big of a joke. It is 9:15 at night and I, along with everyone else in this car, am stone cold sober.
I tuck my knees up under my chin, trying to curl up into a half-baked fetal position and pretend that I am dead. Rolling the window down, I distinctly remember thinking to myself “I am fine. I am fine. I am fine I’m fine I’m fine I’m fine I’m-“
And then I shit myself. In an Uber Pool…with two other riders.
In hindsight it’s great that I’d already rolled the window down because the wind at least diluted the smell. That’s not to say I wasn’t mortified though – have you ever shit yourself in public? Time slows down as your brain rapid-fire shoots out ideas as to what is currently happening to you, because there is no way you are a 23-year-old adult who is shitting their pants in public. Is it a fart? A draft that decided to explore its way down the back of your pants? It’s not shit, is it?
It’s not…okay, it is. And this is my life.
I’d like to tell you that the Uber driver called me out and kicked me to the curb, or that the two girls in the car started freaking out and pushed me out through the window. None of that happened though – the outside wind mostly covered up the smell, not including when we stopped at traffic lights, but at the same time who’s going to suspect the quiet girl listening to music on her iPhone in the backseat shit herself?
I finally made it home, after 10 minutes of sitting in my own filth. Feeling masochistic, I checked my Uber rating. For the record I used to have a 4.5…
…and now I have a 3.9.
And before you ask no — I didn’t leave my phone in the car this time.