You Deserve a Drink: Boozy Misadventures and Tales of Debauchery Read Free

album called
Surfer Rosa,
because I pointed out the cassette tape in a boy’s car in high school once and he said, “You like the Pixies?” and I was all like, “Yeah, I love them” (totally lying), and he was all like, “What’s your favorite album?” and I was all like, “I think I just started my period. Please take me home.” *
    The rest of the afternoon was spent drinking Coronas on the stoop with Maegan and her boyfriend, Doug. Maegan had already been living in New York for a year and was armed with loads of advice. I was relieved. I was worried that everyone was going to be too cool for school, but she was so nice. I could already see us becoming good friends.
    A few hours later, the four of us crammed into a beat-up gypsy cab and rode down to Coney. I had never used a car service before and felt so fancy! Sure, the guy had twelve tiny pine tree air fresheners hanging from his rearview, and I was sitting on someone’s leftover pizza crust, but it wasn’t a boring old yellow taxi. After twenty minutes in the car, we were dropped off in front of a Nathan’s hot dogs. Stepping out of that old Crown Victoria, I (naturally) immediately stepped in dog shit, but I felt like ScarJo being dropped off at the Oscars.
    We got to the venue just as the sun was setting. With the pink sky, ocean, and old amusement park rides behind the stage, Icouldn’t believe I was finally here. It was the perfect backdrop to start this new chapter of my life. I felt like this moment called for a cheers.
    “I’m gonna go grab a drink—you want anything?” I asked Kat as she puffed on a one hitter painted to look like a cigarette.
    “Beers are going to be, like, twenty bucks. I came prepared.” She reached into her huge purse and pulled out, no lie, an entire carton of orange juice. “It’s half OJ, half tequila.” How she got that past security, I have no idea. Her bag was like Mary Poppins’s for hot messes. Mary Pill Poppins. *
    I started to tell her that I’m just one of those people who can’t drink tequila, but I stopped myself. I had three hundred dollars to my name and no job. If someone was offering me a way to get drunk, I needed to take it.
    I took a big gulp from the carton, already planning a lie about having diabetes if a security guard approached us. I had no problem breaking out the fake seizure from my high school production of
Steel Magnolias
. It always worked when I wanted to get a free glass of juice at brunch. Once the OJ-tequila combo hit my lips, I realized Kat was terrible at ratios.
    “Jesus, I know he got away with murdering his wife and all, but what’s your problem with OJ?” I asked.
    Before Kat could judge laugh at my hilarious joke, the music started and the massive crowd went nuts. Well, as nuts as you can for a group of thirty-five-year-olds about to listen to alternative noise rock.
    For the next two hours, I helped Kat finish that carton. The sun set and we lost track of Maegan and her boyfriend, but Kat didn’t seem to be worried. The Pixies played songs about everything from Salvador Dalí to scuba diving. I mouthed along to the lyrics I didn’t know, Oprah-style. Seriously, if you never noticed this while Oprahwas still on the air, do yourself a favor and find some old episodes. Lady Winfrey never knew the damn words to any of her guests’ songs. And I’m not just talking about when a new artist would come on who Oprah had to pretend to give a shit about. I’m talking when she would introduce Tina Turner singing “Proud Mary.” Tina would be tearing it up to this classic tune, and then when the camera panned to O, she would be mouthing, “Loud Harry keeps on yearning . . . and we’re bowling, bowling!” Oprah had her favorite things, and, well, that was my favorite thing of Oprah’s.
    I got drunk enough to stop even trying to be into it and instead spied on all the thirtysomething hipsters trying to get fucked up while also balancing their new responsibilities. I took in