Back when I was in school, I lived in a high-rise dorm in Chicago for three years, and had a tight-knit group of friends that I'm thankful for to this day. Back in the spring of 2001, my friend Jacob and I went on a three-month bender, starting on New Years Eve and ending when I got back from Spring break. We got sloppy drunk every night except Valentine's Day in that span. Typically, we'd get out of class around 3:00 and go to the supermarket and buy the liquor of the day. More often than not, we'd get a fifth of Seagram's 7, since it used to sell for less than $10 back then. We could then go back to the dorm, buy Sprite at the dorm cafeteria on our meal plan and really start the day.
Why did we stop the bender, I hear you asking? Well, I came down with an upper-respiratory infection from my spring break adventures in the 3rd world and got put on some pretty heavy meds that the booze just didn't go right with. So it goes; I suppose going on the wagon for a while didn't hurt anyone.
But back to the story -- for a while we got on a gin kick. Bombay. Tanqueray. Gimlets with the Odwalla we'd buy on our meal plans were particularly tasty. So one day, we needed to get ice for our gin and tonics. I lived on the 9th floor, and there was an ice machine on the 4th floor, so we got on the elevator with an ice bucket. It was like 3:15 p.m. A girl got on the elevator on the 6th floor, and did a double take at the ice bucket.
Jack: "Gin and tonics . . ."
Girl: "Gin and tonic kind of day???"
Jacob (shrugging): "Gin and tonic kind of life."
It really was very funny. Especially since we got off on the 9th floor before she could respond. That era was my last great bender. Jacob ended up marrying my next door neighbor in that dorm, whom he met in my room. One day, I was reminiscing about it, and found the quantity of alcohol consumed to be excessive, so I suspected with age I was exaggerating it, but she verified that indeed, back then, I was a drunk.
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