Round 2 - One of the Reasons Amy's Going to Hell

Picture it: Easter weekend, my junior year of college. Despite my initial resolve to make it an early Saturday night, since I was supposed to be at church in the morning to sing with the choir, I end up at the Greenery with two friends. I was taking sips of their drinks here and there until they complained and told me to get my own damn beverages. So I did. Several times. Mostly Brainstompers. Which is why I only remember bits and pieces of the next few hours. I do, however, have a clear memory of licking the top of the bar dry when someone (probably me) spilled a lot of Brainstomper on it.

Eventually, it was last call — so much for not staying out late! I was more jacked up than my friends were, so for the hike home, one of them got on each side of me, put one of my arms around their shoulders, propped me up, and pushed me along. We looked totally ridiculous because I'm five-nine (ish), one of them is four-eleven (and three quarters), and the other is about five-six (in his cowboy boots).

They got me past the cops and the RAs who were on the lookout at various points along the way home. They did not, however, help me walk around a pillar in the doorway of Albert's Restaurant. According to them, I walked right into it, face first.

By that time we were practically to my room anyways. I was sitting on my bed, and my friends were having a discussion about what to do next. I got their attention by announcing, I think the possibility exists for me to vomit.

I wasn't in any condition to make it down the hall to the bathroom, however. I ended up sitting on my bed, technicolor yawning into some large plastic bowls. One friend was holding the bowls, pushing my hair out the way, and telling me that it would be okay and that she was here for me. Meanwhile, the other one was running a vomit relay: He was taking a full bowl down to the girls' bathroom and dumping it out, then bringing the empty bowl back to trade it for another full bowl. All the noise woke my RA, who followed him into the bathroom to ask what was going on. He's all, Uhm, she's fine! Don't worry! and ran back to my room.

After I heaved all there was to heave, we went to sleep. I woke up the next morning . . . and panicked when I realized I was supposed to be at the church in ten or fifteen minutes. For some dumb reason I ended up yanking on the shirt I wore to the bar the night before, and took some aspirin on the way over. I didn't realize until I was pulling on the choir robe that there are Brainstomper spots on my cuffs and that I totally reek of cigarette smoke.

When the choir files in and sits down for early service, I feel like I'm going to be sick again. I look to the left, and realize I'd have to crawl over about five or six people to get to the door. I look to the right, and see that I'd have to wedge myself between the piano and the pulpit. I'm trapped!

We get up to sing the opening hymn, and I decide I have to get out of there, now. I squeeze past the people on my left and make it to the back room, where there's a little kitchenette they use for communion preparation. I am violently ill in the sink, and then fix myself another glass of water and sit on the steps that go up to the baptismal font while I drink it.

I hear the service continuing without me, and then I'm sick again because of the water. I finally wise up and decide not to drink anything else. I just sit on the steps until the service is over, and decide that I have to go up front and find my friend Billy (one of the people who was out with me the night before) and get him to take me home.

When I find him, I also run into the preacher's wife. She asks me if I'm feeling all right. I say I'm not, and that I think I'd better go home. She asks what's wrong, and I lie. I tell her that I went out to eat the night before with my friend and her parents and that I had the fish and that it must not have agreed with me, which I why I've been sick to my stomach. I'm not sure I was very convincing in my insistence that it was just an unfortunate case of food poisoning, but she pretended to believe me.

Meanwhile, Billy is standing just off to the side, trying not to laugh too loudly. As we walk through the parking lot, though, he just loses it. Apparently, from his pew close to the front, he saw my face get greener and greener until I shoved people out of the way and ran into the back, where he could hear me being sick. He chortled all the way home, and insists to this day that lying to the preacher's wife on Easter Sunday means I am going directly to hell.