There's nothing quite like...

Drinking too much to knock hell out of your body.

I found this out (Again...) on Saturday morning after spending almost £80 on alcohol at Gorgie Mills Bowling Club on Friday night. (Four 35ml spirits and accompanying mixers was less than £5 so I know I must have tanked a fair old amount of booze during the evening.)

The reason for my darkening the doorstep of a bowling club was that it was Jenny's sister Gill's 30th birthday and I'd been invited along.

I did give give serious consideration to not going as I was afraid that I'd be spotted by members of my former workplace and they'd hound me out the building and chase me down the street for having the gall to say that the place was run in a less than efficient manner.

I was under strict instructions from Jenny that if I didn't show my life wouldn't be worth living if I let her down so I popped on my finest Hawaiian shirt and off I went.

Gill looked stunning (As she always does... I've fancied her ever since I first clapped eyes on her when she attended a cabaret in a red dress that would make Chris De Burg tear up his lyric book, recall every copy of "Lady in Red" and move to a small island somewhere.) dressed up as a can-can dancer complete with garter belt and a smile that could easily convince me to do anything she asked of me.

I, of course, began the night by throwing as much drink down my throat as was humanly possible in a space of time that would cause the average alcoholic to pass me an invite to their next AA meeting. (The first round was a double rum and coke immediately followed by a second double rum and coke chased with a shot of Aftershock.)

Within an hour I had abandoned the short glasses for a pint glass of rum and coke and was drinking like alcohol was being banned by the government at midnight. After that things got a bit hazy to say the least.

Amongst the things I do remember...

• Asking Jenny what the fuck Gill saw in the human hamburger.
• Arguing with a senior citizen about Muslims and followers of Islam (His view on the subject was that they should all be shot, my reply was to tell him he was a "Stupid old cunt" and if I had my way he'd be the first against the wall closely followed by his family and friends.)
  
• Screaming at Jenny "Women are as deep as puddles, Men are idiots and we're all doomed!" after a philosophical discussion on what women see in people who's IQ is significantly lower than that of a steak sandwich.
  
• Attempting to hump the leg of an old friend. (Just to see his reaction.)
• Drinking a pint of Malibu and coke and two pints of Smirnoff Ice mixed with Orange Bacardi breezer and blue WKD in the space of three minutes as no-one else wanted them.
  
• Yelling at the top of my lungs in the street as the club emptied "I do not have a wee fat cock!" at Jenny.
• Falling flat on my arse after taking a short cut along a muddy, dark path and laughing hysterically at the situation I was in.
• Having a heated argument with someone on the other side of the riverbank who was attempting to get me to keep the noise down.
  
• Collapsing in a heap in the public park around the corner from my house.
• Being awoken in the park by someone walking their dog at 3am.
• Telling a lamppost that I despaired for humanity in a conversation that lasted for about fifteen minutes.
  
• Waking up on the hall floor of my house at 6am in a shape that shouldn't really be possible for a human being to get into. (I'd somehow managed to contort myself into something resembling the shape of a pretzel.)
• Almost destroying the bathroom after attempting to use the shower curtain as an aid to keep me upright.
• Arguing with the aforementioned shower curtain for not being more supportive in my hour of need.
  

The following day I lay in my bed until at least 5pm with the curtains drawn and a pillow over my head in a vain attempt to make the pounding headache go away.