Praying to the Porcelain Gods…Literally

We've all over-indulged in the alcohol department once or twice in our lifetimes. Usually, a friend or significant other is your caretaker for the night, dutifully guiding you to the nearest bathroom and holding back your hair as you puke your brains out. This doesn't happen to me very frequently. Not that I don't puke from alcohol consumption (dear God, I wish that were the case), but I'm more of a morning-after puker.

This is probably a blessing in disguise for my friends, family and innocent bystanders. When I urk the same night as I drink, I tend to find some not-so satisfactory vomit receptacles. Like stairs on a bus. Or beige carpet. Or a recyclable bin (though I've heard vomit is biodegradable, so that one actually works). But never, in a million years, did I think I'd vom at church.

It all started innocently enough. Lo and I decided to meet up at my hometown to catch up and have a girl's weekend. We went to dinner where I proceeded to down two apple martinis. Afterwards, we went to a couple bars, and I decided I'd be safe and stick to vodka. One cranberry and vodka and one grape vodka concoction later, we headed home.

I honestly didn't feel that drunk. I mean, I only had four drinks over the span of four hours. And I'm no two-beer queer. But holy hangover did I feel like poo Sunday morning. For some reason, I was wide awake at 8:40 a.m. on the only day of the week I could actually sleep-in. So I downed some Coke, thinking it would stop the pounding in my head. Not so much. An hour later, I started getting ready for church. Lo and I were both up at this point, so we figured may as well go and seek forgiveness for our ever-mounting pile of sins.

I was fine through most of the service, but mid-way through the sermon, a wave a nausea swept over me and I knew I was gonna spew. As calmly as possible, I exited the sanctuary and hightailed it to the nearest ladies room. I ended up choking and spitting saliva all over the door as I tried to keep the chunks down.

I've never tried so hard not to vomit in my entire life. My body was like a drug dealer, enticing me: "Just puke, you'll feel better. Come on, everyone does it," while my sadistic mind countered back with, "You're in church! Everyone will know you’re hungover. Put your big girl panties on and just deal with it!"

My mind won for about five minutes—enough time for a mom and her 3-year-old daughter to exit the facility. (Btw…have you ever noticed how long it takes toddlers to use the restroom and wash their hands? I don’t know if they’re still getting used to the whole “using-the- big-girl-potty” process or if they just naturally take ten times longer than everyone else to do a simple task.)

As soon as they left, my body told my mind to go eff itself so it could free my liver of the toxins I introduced to it just 12 hours earlier. I should have felt better after that hurl session. But when I'm hungover, I get really paranoid. And the bathroom was right outside of the nursery. I was convinced all the 6-month-old babies and nursery attendants knew I was a hungover hussy who vomited at church.

I returned to my seat once the sermon ended and popped some breath mints so the people around me wouldn't faint. Hey, we still had to sing the doxology. I didn't want my puke breath wafting towards the rows in front of me. I'm sure no one else did either.

My family was oblivious to my little incident-which was good and bad considering we were going out to lunch to celebrate my grandma’s birthday. I didn't think Wendy's or Taco Bell was an appropriate suggestion as a venue to celebrate my grandma's 84 years of life, so I resisted my hungover cravings and agreed that Olive Garden was a splendid idea. (Those garlic breadsticks weren’t sounding too shabby, either…).

The nausea hit again once we were seated-my body’s timing is impeccable. Except this time, to coincide with the nausea, my head started to feel like it weighed 800 lbs. I needed to lie down. Immediately.

I started brainstorming excuses for leaving the table. I decided on the tried, but true, "I need to get something out of my car." (A hungover person's line of thinking isn't really much better than a drunk person's.) So, I excused myself and headed to my car for a power nap. (Right after hitting up the hostesses for some saltines. They had none. Figures.)

After about 15 minutes of half-ass sleep (because really, how well can you sleep hungover in a car?), I decided I better head back inside before my family sent out a search party. I got about halfway to the door, and saw Lo walking towards me. Best friends have stellar ESP skills.

Back at the table, I tried diving into the salad and breadsticks but started having horrible gag reflux.
Dad: “How’s The Hoff doing?”
Miss Procras: ::muffled gag:: “Fine.”

Hence, I excused myself for the second time and sprinted to the restroom for vom session #2 of the day. Once the salad and breadsticks I had just eaten resurfaced, I decided it was time to give my body a little pep talk:
“Listen, liver, kidneys and other important organs I obviously tortured last night, I know I put you through hell, but get your shit together so the fam doesn’t think I’m a raging alcoholic.”

My body decided to listen this time. Two breadsticks, two plates of salad and two gallons of water later, I felt halfway human again.

As discreet as I tried to keep my hangover, I’m pretty sure the fam caught on. Before we left, my grandma said, “Miss Procras, you burn the candle at both ends and in the middle. We’ve got to slow you down.”

Oh man, even my grandma knew. I’m still not sure whether to be embarrassed, ashamed or just push this out of the memory bank forever.

I think I’ll just shake my head and have a good laugh. Stuff like this always happens to me, so may as well entertain other people at my expense.