Picture it: Manhattan, NYC, January 1998. It's a cold winter night and I meet up with two friends at a Lower East Side bar.
There I'm introduced to a drink I'd never heard of before: a vodka seven. Surprised at it's smoothness, I drink one. Then another. Then another. Soon I lose track. Much later, arm-in-arm, we three go forth into the deep frosty night to see what we could get into.It is now near noon the next day and I have the worst hangover created by the heavens. As we stumble towards a subway entrance heading to brunch, I'm squinting even against the feeble winter sun when my glance happens to fall on a panhandler next to the turnstile. You've seen Alfred Hitchcock's Veritgo, right? When Jimmy Stewart's character is climbing the tower and there's that weird pull-back while falling sensation? That's what I experience horrific disjointed memories from the night before stabbed forth.
"Guys," I asked, still staring at the panhandler while annoyed New Yorkers pushed past me towards the entrance, "when we left the bar last night, was there a homeless person outside the bar?""Yes," one agreed.
"Was it a woman?" I pressed, "A homeless woman asking for money?"
"Sure was," said the other.
"And tell me," I continued, feeling truly sick. "Tell me I didn't stand there on the street giving her advice on how to panhandle. Tell me I didn't wish her good luck and then give her a big bear hug. Tell me I didn't.." I finished weakly, my head helplessly jerking from left to right under the onslaught of the surfacing vodka-laden memories."Sorry but that's exactly what you did," the first said with evil glee. "She was really REALLY annoyed."
And with that, my misery - and my most embarrasing inebriated moment - was cast.
What's yours? I won't tell. Promise.
- Farmer Ted
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