80 Proof

1 I looked at the shot glass I held in my right hand and started to think.

2 When I think about it I have achieved a lot because of my drinking (Again, I would like to state that I am not a drunkard. I just like to drink…occasionally). I have managed to do certain things due to intoxication that I would never have done if I were sober.

3 I have managed to acquire my first girlfriend. I have managed to breeze through a Political Science 14 final exam. I have managed to acquire a 1 in my feature writing class. I have managed to gain the respect (okay, maybe fear) of my friends. I have discovered those who will stick to me despite my weaknesses. Most of all, I have managed to have fun all the while. All of these I have managed to do because my bloodstream at the time was 1/3 blood and 2/3 alcohol.

4 I took a quick swig of Ginebra.

5 She challenged me to a drinking competition and because my pride was on the line, I accepted. The date was set, the terms agreed upon: Last man/woman standing in a beer guzzling match. I arrived at the meeting place first. When she came I began to have second thoughts. I looked at my opponent and, not meaning to be chauvinistic, I knew immediately that I would win.

6 She has a slender body. She looked like a woman you’d buy a drink for at a bar, not someone who would outdrink you in a bar. I wanted to back out but I was not about to admit it. I sensed that she wanted to back out as well but she too was not going to say it first. So, after a quick dinner we headed for one of the bars near UP Los Baños and proceeded with our match.

7 Two bottles of Red Horse, a bottle of Pale Pilsen, one bottle of Miller and a bottle of San Mig Light later, she decided to call it quits. I smiled in my triumph. She almost had me. Two more bottoms up and I would have lost.

8 I offered to take her back to her dorm but seeing that she could barely stand I opted to go to Baker Field (something like the Sunken Garden of UPLB) and let her nap her intoxication off for a while.

9 You just have to love alcohol’s way of loosening the tongue. She revealed that she liked me and after an inadvertent make-out session she asked, “So, tayo na?” To which I replied, ”Ha? O sige, ikaw bahala.” (fool!) Ladies and gentlemen, my first girlfriend.

10 Of course, that relationship was extremely short-lived. Twenty-two hours of commitment to be exact. I had to break it off. She was drunk, for crying out loud!

11 I handed the shot glass to my friend, Mark. It was his idea to drink. He just failed his Math 14 exam. I laughed inside. Tanga kasi, sana nag-inom na lang siya e di sana nakapasa pa siya, I thought.

12 I never had any trouble mixing my academic life with my drinking life.

13 Once, after a grueling sem-ender with my friends in Laguna, I had to commute the following day back to Diliman to take my final exam in Pol Sci. 14. I was suffering from a headache brought about by a hang-over and I was not in the mood to think. I browsed through my notes in a final attempt to absorb information. I gave up.

14 I sat in the exam room staring at my bluebook for the longest time. When I finally decided to read the first question, information just rushed through my mind. I answered the exam quickly, smiled at my professor as I passed it and trotted out the door.

15 People say alcohol destroys brain cells. The drinking spree I had the night before probably fried enough brain cells with useless information that I was left with the cells containing what I learned in class. I got a 1.5 as my final grade. I drank to celebrate.

16 My feature writing class is another story. The class was held every Monday, day of my hang-overs. During the weekend I would attend drinking sessions with friends. Writing assignments were forgotten until Monday. Every paper I passed for feature writing, I wrote while I was intoxicated. My story ideas always came when I was drunk. I felt like Edgar Allan Poe that particular semester. I, my dear friends, got a 1 in my class card.

17 I was already wheezing so I stood up to get fresh air. My face felt like it was being stretched, a sign that the alcohol was getting to my system. I staggered out of the small kubo.

18 “Red, san ka?” Mark asked

19 “Ihi lang,” I answered.

20 “Tol, ingat. Huwag ka matulog sa CR. Ang bigat mo buhatin eh,” another friend, Bryan told me. Then he laughed. I just shook my head.

21 Tidying up after smashed friends was a job the barkada shared. But mostly, I end up doing the bulk of the job since most drinking sessions were held at my house. I had to be, yuck, responsible.

22 Those who managed to stay somewhat sober until the end of a drinking spree were always tasked to clean the mess. It sucked. We had to haul lifeless bodies to bed, provide buckets to puke into and make sure that the place was clean.

23 There was that one time that I got tired of the job. I decided to get drunk during a sem-ender in my third year college. I had decided that it was my turn to have my lifeless ass to be hauled to bed.

24 So, I challenged everybody to drink one mug of gin with me (the Ginebra kind, mind you). No one accepted, so I smugly took the mug and finished to the last drop. To emphasize my liver’s supremacy I also gulped down a full glass. Then, I swam two laps in the pool.

25 I thought I was going to last but my world shattered when I decided to pee. My aim was still precise and I managed to finish without making a muss. However, I blinked then closed my eyes for a moment. After that all I could remember was sitting on the cold tiles with an outstretched hand groping for the door knob and hearing voices outside shouting, “Hoy tanga! Buksan mo yung pinto!”

26 Not learning my lesson, I decided to repeat the full glass of gin exhibition at my friend’s birthday a few months later to impress the girls in the group. There were around 15 of us then in a cottage at the celebrant’s resort. There were only six guys in the group and we were tasked to finish the Hari (That’s 1.5 liters of Ginebra, my friends) before we could open the Jose Cuervo (Yum! Mamam!). There was only one glass left of the gin so I just had to volunteer. I finished the glass and that time opted to sit down than walk around.

27 The girls just came from Boracay and were giving out necklaces to the guys as pasalubong . They made it into an awarding ceremony. The guys were called one by one to receive their necklaces. I couldn’t remember that ceremony but my friends told me that since I looked drunk and I was rooted to my seat, Oro was asked to receive the necklace for. He was putting it on me when I suddenly ripped it off my neck and gazed menacingly at Oro.

28 “Putang ina mo Oro!” I said (Well, they told me I said that.)

29 After that display they told me that I ordered Bryan to punch in the keys for “A Whole New World” in the videoke machine. They said that the exchange went like this:

30 Me: Bryan! A Whole New World.

31 Bryan: Tol, lasing ka na eh!

32 Me: A WHOLE NEW WORLD!!! (with matching pounding on the table)

33 So he entered “A Whole New World” and I sang (mumbled, actually, they said). By this time everybody in the cottage had moved out and hid behind the benches, away from me. The guys were daring each other to put the necklace on me but they figured I might rip their heads off. I woke up the next morning with a killer headache and a blurry memory.

34 Before I returned to the drinking circle, I took a deep breath to clear my lungs and to get oxygen to my brain.

35 “O baka di ka nanaman makahinga. Sabihin mo lang,” Mark told me.

36 “Okay lang ako.” I assured him.

37 The ultimate drinking experience would probably be the time when I thought I was going to die. After a night of dancing, swimming and, of course, excessive drinking I began to feel a pain in my chest. It was like a hand squeezing at my heart. I started to cry in pain and my friends got very worried. I actually began seeing the white light and uttering things like, “Tell my parents I love them,” and “If I die today, I die happy.” The usual delirious bull shit.

38 My friends were able to rush me to the hospital where the doctors found nothing wrong with me. They just dismissed it as intoxication. A nurse, after seeing me clutching my chest even had the gall to say, “Babae lang yan. Huwag mo daanin sa inom.” I knew then and there that that woman is the epitome of bitchiness.

39 I was released from the hospital after they took a blood sample. They never really figured out what happened to me. My parents fetched me and just guessed that it was probably heartburn. Well, it hurt, so there!

40 My parents laughed at me all the way home. “Yan kasi! Sinasabi ko na nga ba eh. Kung anu-ano kasi iniinom niyo. Sa sususnod uminom kayo ng black label o imported. Anong napapala niyo sa gin? Mag Fundador kaya kayo? Tapos pomelo lang ang chaser. Dapat Del Monte Pineapple Juice,” was My parents’ precious advice. Aren’t they adorable?

41 I walked back to the kubo and took a seat. All that due to drinking, I thought.

42 I smiled. Well, alcohol certainly made my life spicy. It got me into trouble but it made me realize that I have great drinking buddies who will haul me to bed when I’m drunk or even bring me to the hospital. Alcohol taught me never to drink one on one with a woman again. I realized that it helps me relax my mind so that new ideas could come in. But most of all, I realized that it could make me pass out and forget that life is hard (escapism, hehe).

43 Shot ko na pala.