I'm never drinking again...

“What the....? Where am I?” Waking up freezing, I looked around and realised I had been sleeping somewhere outside on a hard concrete floor in the middle of the night. 

Trying to get up, I stumbled, still drunk, backwards and landed on my bum. “Where the hell are we?” I said in a loud whisper to my best friend. “Hey, wake up!” I whisper yelled, elbowing the lifeless body beside me.

My besty stirred slightly, and lifted her head just enough to vomit on the grass beside her. The stench of warm bile, a combination of Fruity Lexia and orange juice mixed with stomach acid which BFF regurgitated, was a familiar smell that filled my nostrils. Retching and heaving, barely able to keep her head up, BFF groaned and rolled back on her stomach. 

“Seriously, where the hell are we?” I asked again. “Fucked if I know” BFF whispered. Too scared to talk too loudly in case we were in someone’s backyard, we knew there was a strong possibility we could be anywhere.

The two of us were no stranger to drunken weekends, and waking up in strange places. In fact, it was more than a regular occurrence. Looking down, I realised I had been sleeping in a skirt, cardigan and just my bra. Vaguely remembering taking my top off sometime earlier, slowly the nights events came back in a drunken haze. I remembered washing my top earlier after I had vomited all over myself and hanging it over a tree branch to dry.

Scrambling to my feet again, holding onto the wall beside me for balance, I searched the tree’s closest to where we had been sleeping, and found my white singlet top. Although it looked more like a pale shade of yellowy brown all over the front. ‘Mum’ll love getting that out’ I thought to myself. 

Limping back to where my best friend was passed back out, I realised I was only wearing one shoe. Limping around the perimeter of the building we were sleeping beside, I searched all the way around for my missing shoe. In the moonlight that beamed through the trees in the garden, I could see that the building was an old church that we had stopped at when we had gotten out of the taxi when I had thrown up on myself earlier. 

Vomiting quietly in the back seat, we had told the taxi driver we wanted to walk the rest of the way into the town’s nightclub district because we needed air. Leaving a friend in the taxi to take the blame once he reached his destination! ‘He’s gonna kill us’ I thought. ‘I wonder how mad the driver was’. Still unable to locate my shoe, I made my way back to where my friend was passed out.

“Have you seen my shoe?” No answer. “Hey, have you seen my shoe” I said again, a little more loudly this time. “Here!” My friend lifted her head and pulled the shoe out, throwing it towards me. “I used it as a pillow, must have come off when you fell over earlier”. Suddenly remembering stumbling up the steps of the front of the church, I looked down at the blood that had dried on my leg. It looked black in the dark. ‘Ha, another war injury!’ I chuckled to myself, proud of my drunken antics. 

BFF had scrambled to her feet by now, and was wandering around trying to get her “sea legs” as they called the dizzy drunken walk people did after being passed out. “Did you find your top? I can’t believe we passed out behind a church” BFF said with wry amusement. “The boys would be proud”. “Hmm yeah...we can totally still go out right? We have more drinking to do!” I said. “If I do my cardigan up, you can’t tell I spewed can you?”

Whooo, hold up a minute. What are we thinking? 17 years old, blind drunk in the middle of Geelong, 2 girls on their own, stumbling around a church? How can we possibly make amends for being so stupid?

“We better do some Hail Mary’s and prey for defiling the church!” BFF said as if reading my thoughts for making up for being so disrespectful. “I think we owe more than that for being so stupid” I muttered under my breath. “Lucky we woke up before morning mass I guess!”

Collecting our shoes and clothes, and tidying ourselves as best we could, we made our way back onto the main street, and headed towards the nightclub district. Shuffling along like 80 year old grandma’s, trying to look sober, we stumbled along the road. The dawn haze began to settle in front of us, a few people were at the truck stop getting early morning bacon and egg breakfasts, the smell made me feel ill. One or two cars passed, but the street was strangely quiet. Laughing about our adventure, stopping a few times to fix our heels and spitting to try and get rid of the spew taste in our mouths, we looked more like cheap hookers than 17 year old students...although my BFF was 18, so at least one of us was legal I guess.

“Beep, beep” A car tooted at us. Turning around, we saw a little white car approaching. “Piss off!” BFF yelled at the driver as they slowed down, sticking her finger up at them. “Fucking paedophile, we’re 17! Piss off!” She yelled again, as we sped up, heads down, walking as fast as we could go. The older of the two of us, BFF was the street smart one. Act tough, and people don’t mess with you.

One rule of wandering the streets at night, never talk to anyone in a car, and never make eye contact. It can get you jumped, or worse. Much worse. The hair stood up on the back of my neck. My heartbeat quickened, and I was walking as fast as possible in my new k-mart heels. ‘What the hell are we doing here, how did I end up like this!?’ I thought, as the bile welled up in my throat again. ‘Good lord don’t vomit you idiot’ I said to myself again.

“Keep walking and don’t look at them” BFF instructed. “I’ve got my flask in my sock, so don’t worry, they can’t hurt us, I’ll hit them with it”. Knowing full well that BFF was telling the truth, she never went clubbing without her stainless steel Jim Beam filled flask wedged in her old black doc martins, I still didn’t feel any safer. It was at least 3am, walking down the street with nobody else around by this stage, and cars didn’t slow down and follow you for no reason. 

“Beep, beep” again the driver tooted the horn at us. Swiftly, BFF bent down and pulled her pant leg up, taking the little flask out. “Keep walking!” She told me again. “Fast!”

The little white car sped up a little bit, until it was a few meters in front of us, and then pulled up to the curb. The engine stalled, and the car door opened. I heard all this, but still hadn’t looked up. “I’ve got a knife, and I’ll fucking stab you in the face if you come near us, just fuck off!” BFF yelled at the driver. 

“What the hell are you two idiots doing?” A familiar female voice yelled back at us. Looking up, a flood of relief rushed through me. “Thank god it’s you!” Both of us said simultaneously. Running towards the driver, we hugged her, and she immediately jumped back. 

“You both stink of spew! What in hell have you been doing? Oh god Nik, have you got spew all over you?” She shrieked. Standing under the street lamp, our appearance left much to be desired. In short, we looked like crap. Our saviour, a girl a few months older than me, who we played netball with, had seen us walking and decided to make sure it was definitely us before she pulled over. She had just finished her shift at a local bar, and was on her way home. 

“What are you guys still doing out, its 5am!” “5am?” I said, “How many hours were we passed out for?” Rolling her eyes, a gesture not lost on both of us, our saviour opened the back door to her car. “Get in, I’m taking you guys home”. She huffed. “Nah, were going out still” BFF answered, immediately getting defensive. 

How dare this bitch think she’s better than us! 

“I said GET IN” Saviour insisted. “And I said we’re fine, were GOING OUT” BFF replied.

“Going where you moron’s? Into town? What do you think is still open, its 5am! And your 17 Nik! You won’t get in anywhere anyway!” She snarled. Looking at the ground, I felt ashamed. I'd been sneaking into nightclub's since I was 16. Here was this girl, who I looked up to, seeing me like this and looking at us as though we were gutter trash. Well, weren’t we? We had thrown up all over ourselves, passed out at a church, woken up and decided we were still fine to go out drinking and dancing. Pretty much the epitome of gutter trash. 

“I think we should go home, I don’t feel so good” I said. “Don’t you dare spew in my car Nik!” Saviour hissed, getting pretty tired with the conversation. She was trying to be nice by offering to take us two little shit’s home, and she was getting abused for it!

“Sorry, I’m just pissed off, that’s all” BFF apologised, “I didn’t realise it was 5am, I thought it was about 2am, we got in here at about 11.30pm, we must have passed out for hours.” 

“It’s ok, just get in, I’ll take you back home. I’m tired and its freezing, I’m not standing here arguing about it with you” Saviour said, really over the whole debacle by now. “Are you going to spew Nik?” She asked me. “No I’m ok, just really tired now, I need bed.... and maybe Macca’s on the way home?” I pushed my luck. 

“Ok, let’s go, you can shout me Macca’s then” Saviour laughed.

Sitting in the back seat of our 'hero’s' little white Corolla, I reflected on the night’s events. Or what I could remember. BFF’s boyfriend had picked us up and taken us to a party at his mate’s house. We’d spent the night playing cards, listening to AC/DC and Quiet Riot and getting drunk on cask wine and orange juice. In fact we had drunk a whole cask between the 2 of us. Then another mate had suggested we head into the club’s to keep drinking, so we literally commando rolled down the steps out of the bungalow and waited for the taxi. Other than telling BFF that I felt sick, and then vomiting in the taxi, the next 5 hours were a complete blank until I woke up at the church. 

Anything could have happened, what am I doing?  What if someone robbed us, or even worse, raped us! It was nice not to remember something for a while though...I’d like to do that more often.

Arriving home and then heading to bed, I felt sick at the thought that I had to be up for netball in 2 hours for the first final. 

The team’s counting on me to play well and I’m going to be hungover.... great! I’m never drinking again!

That wasn’t the first time I’d said that, and for the next 12 years it certainly wouldn’t be the last.....