Life's Unanswered Questions?

Last time I had a house party, my parents kindly donated a bottle of Vodka. Said bottle wasn’t just the standard Smirnoff or any of its equally commercial friends. Far from it. This vodka was something really special that had been lurking away with the bottle of Cherry Brandy and some other brown tar-like liqueur in my parent’s alcohol cabinet since... well, a hell of a long time ago!

“Did you know this vodka is from the U.S.S.R?” one of my friends asked.

“Well that must mean its good stuff then,” I reply. The U.S.S.R is Russia, right? I know I teach English but I did get an A* at GCSE geography. Evidently I didn’t take History, otherwise I would have known that the U.S.S.R was dissolved in 1991, which would have meant that in 2010, when I moved into my new flat, this Vodka was upwards of 20 years old. Added to the fact that it was a gift to my dad when he went to Russia (which he hasn’t done since I’ve been alive!) we were probably in for a rough night. After unscrewing the top and practically getting drunk of the alcohol vapour emitted, I decided that this, along with most other vodkas, was not my friend and steered the bottle in the direction of my drink hardened friends. After sinking the majority of the bottle between three of them, by the end of the night it wasn’t their friend either. Even the mention of the dreaded tipple can cause hangover like symptoms; no joke!

Fast forward a year, and after months of trials and tribulations, I was eventually settled in my new abode and ready to warm it in true binge-drinking fashion. Following the customary trip to my parent’s alcohol cabinet, where I managed to unearth a much more palatable bottle of Jack Daniels, and a full, but slightly dubious looking bottle of a Bourbon called Canadian Club whose date of manufacture pre-dated last year’s vodka, I was ready to welcome the revellers. Among the guests were various friends and acquaintances including the colleague who dances like Vanilla Ice and her equally awesome side-kick, the blogging supremo, and most worryingly, the previously mentioned, bad influence and instigator of mischief extraordinaire, Hayley. On spotting the Canadian Club, she remarked with glee that it combined her two most favourite things in life, Canadian’s and whiskey, before setting about devouring the bottle with a little (a lot!) of help from yours truly. If it carried on like this, it was going to be a very messy night!

In order to safeguard my cream carpets from my growing drunkenness, and especially after making such a song-and-dance about everyone bringing non-staining drinks (after all I am now a homeowner, thus take full responsibility for vomit on the carpets, whether mine or otherwise) I decided it was time to steer the gang in the direction of a local cocktail bar, for water of course.

I started to realise that I was on the slippery slope to complete inebriation after trying to limbo under the barrier at the multi-story car park (why we were even in a multi-story car park still remains a complete mystery to me) followed by trying to pole dance on a lamp post.

Just to be on the safe side I carried on drinking as I was pretty sure that I wasn’t entertaining enough already and threw in a few dares just to add to the excitement. After completing many thrusts and singing to randomers, I turned the tables onto someone else.

“Your dare,” I slurred to my colleague, “is to sing ‘You’re just too good to be true’ to that man over there,” as I point vaguely in the direction of someone I’m hoping was male. Surprisingly, not only did she understand what I had asked, she actually did it! If I could do that Ali G style finger clicking and could pull off a fake Reggae accent, now would be the time that I would say Respect! Nonetheless, after harassing the majority of the cliental, it was necessary to make a well timed exit as this was a place that I actually quite like, so didn’t want to run the risk of being ejected... as that would seriously narrow the amount of places that I was able to visit with a shred of dignity intact.

Now for those of you who know Birmingham, there are very few choices to head on to when you are in that state of drunkenness (Broad Street excepted of course, as in fact I was probably way too sober to be heading in that direction!)  apart from the alcohol dependent and wastrel’s Mecca that is Snobs. To give you an idea of the type of place this is, the last time that I had been there (at the end of a date nonetheless... nothing says romance like Snobs!) I witnessed a drunken guy who was passed out on the pavement wet himself. Yet I still went back for more and shamefully, embarrassingly, and probably any other adverbs to describe my drunken actions, this was the second time that I had been to Snobs in the space of a week and if I was not so wasted at this stage I would have been thinking please don’t recognise me, but instead focused on please let me not seem too drunk to be refused entry!

And this leads me on to how I decided on the title for this blog; Life’s unanswered questions, (and don’t worry, I’m not about to get all deep and philosophical and break the habit of a lifetime!)

But I will now pose the following questions:

After discovering the Facebook status... Jack is lost somewhere is Snobs, a particularly sympathetic friend pointed out that it is laid out in a circular pattern and so forming the first question of How the fuck can you get lost in a circle? Well it’s not exactly an unanswerable question if you subtract the near lethal quantities of alcohol from the equation, but it’s still a bit of a doozy.

The second question: What exactly did happen in those three (yes three) hours that I spent at Snobs until four in the morning? Which the leads me onto my third, and most puzzling question.

What. The. Hell. Were we all doing that night to mean that the hardened 6 who remained until the bitter end, woke up the next morning (admittedly horribly hung-over/ still drunk in my case) with our necks completely locked?!

Answers on a post card please.