Mad Atoms

I wake up Thanksgiving morning on the couch in all my clothes, phone and wallet still in my pocket (always a good sign). My face and my left thigh throb with pain. The kitchen reeks of puke as I pass by. I flip on the light in the bathroom to discover blood everywhere. Oh yeah… it all starts coming back to me… 

After I drive 32 hours without stopping from LA to my friends Dan and Rick’s place in the Chicago, the team assembles: Dan, Rick, Pete, Hammel and myself. Chinese food is ordered as we prep to battle Thanksgiving Eve. We pre-game with a couple shots. Then Dan remembers he has some pot stashed behind a pipe in his bathroom (why it’s "stashed" in his own home, I don't know). It’s the oldest, driest pot I've ever seen in my life. We smoke it all the same.

Boot! Pete suddenly pukes everywhere in the kitchen, then passes out. It is only 9pm.  

We put Pete to bed (ie, heave him face down on the futon so he won’t die like a rockstar). Dan and Rick have a maid coming in two days, so we decide clean up isn't necessary. But the puke smell is so bad we’re forced to vacate the premises.

Now we’re early at the club, and the dance floor isn’t open yet. So we wait and we drink.

The combination of booze, weed and not sleeping for two days has caught up with me and I become obnoxious. I take a running jump and dive onto the dance floor so I can slide along the ground. For some reason I have a harmonica in my pocket, which I crush and injure my leg. I also get us kicked out of the club. No high fives for me.

During the cab ride to our back-up club I experience a brown out while everyone is bitching at me. I come to in a giant birdcage, dancing with some random girl. Interesting. I then discover no one can find Dan. He went off with some fugly girl and isn’t answering his phone. Rick determines he is dead to the evening. Hammel hands me a drink.   

Another brown out. 

I come to in a cab, wearing women’s gloves (never got to the bottom of that one). Rick’s sometimes girlfriend Helen is now with us. Hammel apparently abandoned us to hit a strip club. Now we’re headed home.

I suddenly become consumed with the idea that my car can’t actually be parked where I left it, so the moment the cab arrives outside Rick’s, I take off running without saying anything. I find my car. It’s fine. I decide to make myself throw up, but it doesn’t work. A cat watches me while I dry heave in the street. 

I arrive back at Rick and Dan’s to discover blood on the floor. Rick has blood all over his clothes and Helen is holding a towel over his face. Apparently after I inexplicably ran off Rick and Helen waited for me outside. Helen – who is a total bitch – saw a group of five teenagers milling about and decided to call them “fags.” They respond by calling her a “whore.” Rick unfortunately didn’t realize she instigated things and jumped to her honor. He then proceeded to get his ass beat by a bunch of 16yearolds.  

I laugh hilariously and say I wish I could’ve fought too. Helen partially grants my wish by suddenly punching me in the face, saying this was my fault. (Apparently later Rick bleeds all over Helen while they try to have sex.) 

Thanksgiving Day we reassemble the team to cook our meal.

Too hungover and lazy to clean up Pete’s puke-ageddon in the kitchen, we decide to order Chinese food again.  

The following day we sheepishly abandon the apartment while Rick and Dan’s poor Polish maid cleans up the biohazard we’ve left behind. The angry-horrified-judgmental look she gives us when we return will haunt me forever. We tip her over $100.  

Best Thanksgiving ever?