The liver is evil and must be destroyed

I meant to post this weekend, but I instead spent the better part of both days in bed recovering from Friday night.

I assumed that having only three guests at my year-end party would prevent things from getting out-of-hand. Alas, I'd forgotten that my friends were an Irishwoman, a Scotswoman, and a Harpingdon lad with an impressive capacity for beer. In hindsight, I should have considered those factors.

It started out pleasantly enough. We ordered a bottle of Chenin Blanc and chatted over dinner. At that point, it was just the Irish and me. When the Scot and her man showed up, we naturally needed to order them a drink, which I think resulted in a second bottle of wine and two ciders. Halfway through the second bottle, we decided that I had not found a drink worthy of being used for my "end of thesis" toast, and my Scottish friend offered to buy anything I requested.

It was around 10pm. I was feeling brave. I walked up to the bar with her and ordered the one drink guaranteed to make me a very happy girl in a very short amount of time. Its only drawback is the name.

"What can I get ye?" the bartender asked. He was one of the newer employees who had not yet learned to avoid the pack of girls from up the hill who traipsed in every week.

I leaned really close, determined to describe the drink without giving it a name. My friend helped by reiterating everything I said.

"Can I have a pint of Guinness, but can you only fill it about two-thirds of the way?"

My friend -- we'll call her Sheilagh -- chimed in, "Yeah, so not all the way," pantomiming with an imaginary glass.

"And a shot that's half whisky, half Bailey's?"

"So not all whisky and not all Bailey's, but in the same glass. One shot"

The bartender looked like he wanted to be very helpful. "Well, we don't have shot glasses," he said. He looked downcast. Then, his face brightened. "I could nip across the street to t'other pub and nick one from them?"

We shook our heads gravely.

"I'll just put them in wine glasses then," he said, "but separate."

"Make it two of everything," Sheilagh said unexpectedly. She grinned. "We'll make Allie drink one, too."

"Whatsit called annyway?" the bartender asked.

Great. This called for careful subtlety in a packed pub. "Irisharbom," I mumbled.

"Come again?"

"Irshcarbo."

He shook his head.

"Irish Car Bomb," I snapped, in a pub which naturally went silent the moment before I spoke.

The bartender looked at me in a half-pitying, half-scornful manner and then went off to fix my Terrorist Special.

We left the bar with one almost-full glass of Guinness, a double shot of whisky in a white wine glass, and somewhere between one and two shots of Bailey's in a half-pint glass. With only one Guinness, I was going to have to drink it all.

Normally, with a Car Bomb, you take the combined shot and drop it into the Guinness. The whole thing explodes in a rising tide of froth, which you have to chug like a parched camel because it curdles in about 30 seconds, all the while gingerly maintaining contact with the rim of the glass so you can slurp the last drop and pull away before the shot glass smacks you in the teeth. It's fantastic. Drink one, you earn a little respect. Drink two, you're a bar legend at home. Drink three...well, I just wouldn't drink three unless you want to be remembered as "that girl who drank three Car Bombs and wound up dancing the tango to an Irish jig."

However, now I was faced with the prospect of pouring the drinks in to the Guinness and hoping that it would have the same effect. By this time, everyone at our table was mesmerized, and the bartender was still leaning at the side window.

"Maybe I'll just..." Damn. Thinking became difficult after your third glass of wine.

"Do y'want something to stir it with?" Allie asked. She rummaged in her bag for a pen. "Here," she said.

I dumped the whisky in and splashed the Bailey's after it. We stared in fascination as both liquids swirled ominously at the bottom of the Guinness. No bomb.

"I think it's congealing down there," Allie murmured.

"Right," Sheilagh said. "Drink it. C'mon!"

I grabbed Natalie's pen and hammered it round for a bit until I couldn't quite distinguish just how nasty the bottom bit had become. The table to our right had gone quiet. I should have just given up on the whole idea, but I was officially in Hyper-Competitive Drunk Irish-American Girl Mode. I was drinking that damned thing, and I was going to drink it faster than anyone ever had. I slammed the whole thing back, marvelling at how many textures and solids could be found in a poorly made Car Bomb. Defiantly, I slammed the glass down on the table. Hah! Didn't even feel it.

....Didn't feel a thing, actually. Hand-eye coordination seems to be fucked. Bloody wine. Had to be the wine.

The last thing I remember from the evening was being in Sheilagh's room with a few more friends and yelling, "Marine Corps, bitch! U-rah!" as I challenged one of their fiancees, a military man, to a drinking contest. He had a glass of cider. I had a bottle of Jamison's, and I'm pretty sure I actually pulled the cork out with my teeth. I really must insist that someone render me unconscious with a blunt object before I get to the drinking-from-the-bottle stage.

Saturday morning, I woke up under my covers in a necklace and two black socks. Somehow, I'd managed to hang up my coat, but everything else was on the couch in a mash of shoes, clothes, purses and jewelry. My keys were still in Sheilagh's room. Something had happened to my head, as it suddenly felt it had shrunk around my brain. None of us actually got up until sometime after 11, at which point the rest of the weekend was a wash entailing lots of silence, stumbling through grocery stores cursing the cheery flourescent lights, and refusing to go within ten feet of a pub.

Bloody thesis. I blame it for all of this.