New Year's Eves of Yore

Ah, the end of a year. A chance to end each calendar year in the same way you began it, shitfaced.

For the modern-day functioning alcoholic, New Year's Eve, along with St. Patrick's Day and Monday, represents an epic night to get drunk.

It is your choice, nay, your duty to get historically drunk, and fuck or fight someone that you've always wanted to.

While my plans for this evening are still up in the air, I was reflecting on some of the New Year's I've had in the past.

Pardon the gaps between years. Either they weren't memorable enough, or I was so black out drunk that the night doesn't have any memory for me.

Without further ado:

Dec. 31, 1999- Jan. 1, 2000:

The first time I ever got drunk in my life. Sure, I was a mere lad of 16, and I think I only had some champagne, maybe a rum and coke, and a few beers, but it was the first time I was introduced to the sweet, sweet feeling of being drunk.

Looking back on what my life has become, it seems oddly appropriate that this is how I entered the millennium.

Actually, I entered the new millennium with my first ever hangover. And I haven't learned to this day.

Dec. 31, 2002- Jan. 1, 2003:

After a two year hiatus from memorable New Years, I returned with a vengance. Now a seasoned college man (after all, I had just completed my first semester of freshman year), me and some friends gathered at someone's house, at a party hosted by his parents.

We got wasted on the expensive champagne his parents had bought, and then we moved to our own cheap booze, which, as I recall, was a few bottle of Boone's Farm, and maybe a fifth of bourbon.

We got wasted, then proceeded to wander around my friend's neighborhood, "fucking shit up" as I believe the quote was. Our wanderings ended with my friend puking all over the entrace sign the the neighborhood.

Later, back at the house, me and the same friend decided to smoke some pot, which neither if us had. Knowing that a passed out friend had bragged of some, we jimmied his car door open with a coat hangar, and proceeded to steal his shit.

We passed out, high as kites, in my buddy's car, with the engine running.

I woke up to the friend whose car we had broken into yelling at me, since in our drunken haste to get stoned, we had knocked a bunch of his shit out of the car, which had been ruined by the resulting downpour of the evening.

To boot, it was 8 a.m. when I woke up, and I had to work until 5 p.m. at the record store at which I was then employed. Let's just say it was a looooong shift.

Dec. 31, 2003- Jan. 1, 2004:

Ah yes, my sophomore year in college. This year, I decided to drive from my parent's house in Northern Virginia to my place in Blacksburg, where I met a few friends that were still in town at a party.

My drink of choice this particular evening was a fifth of Gordon's London Dry Gin, which I had filched from my parents. Gin and ginger was my drink of choice back then, which is why I can barely drink gin right now.

All I remember is playing beer pong in someone's basement, finishing the fifth, and then stealing six or seven 24 oz. cans of Bud Light from a fridge at the house we were at.

It was also the first time I had to be driven home in my own car. I remember marveling at how it felt to be sitting shotgun in a car that had only been driven my me for the last few months.

I woke up the next morning feeling awful (surprise surprise) but a lunch at a greasy Chinese buffet (the food, not the wait staff) made it all alright.

Dec. 31, 2005- Jan. 1, 2006:

I think I had people over to my house. I know I got drunk. I'm sure I threw up. That's about all I can say for sure.

Dec. 31, 2006- Jan. 1, 2007:

Ah, this was a good one. I was in Jacksonille, Fla., for the Gator Bowl, which pitted WVU against Georgia Tech on New Year's Day.

Our flight arrived at about 6:00, with me, my cousin, my uncle, and my uncle's friend. We checked into the hotel, didn't eat dinner, and caught a cab to the waterfront.

It was a scene that I have rarely seen before in my life. A band was playing right on the water, a good band, playing soul and R&B hits that were familiar, yet I didn't know the words.

Every cheap souvenir stand and bookstore had been transformed into a bar, with some serving liquor, and some with giant coolers of beer.

After drinking several beers, I switched to Jack. Since the bartender at the Jack Daniel's stand was hot, I tipped her very well. Which turned out to hurt me in the end.

Because, after the ball had dropped, the fireworks shot, the Jack Daniel's ran out. But milady, flush with all the good tips I had dropped (and probably my sloppy, slurring charm) began to give me Jack Daniel's Single Barrel and Cokes, which are much stronger, but also much smoother.

Next thing I remember, me and my cousin were standing next to a skyscraper waiting for a cab, my uncle and his friend at the street trying to hail one.

I proceeded to piss on the building, and encouraged my cousin (who had informed me that he was on probation from several Drunk in Publics) to do the same.

After a brief argument, he agreed, and we got away scot-free.

The only other thing I remember is getting the cab. The cabdriver was a grossly overwieght black woman, who had a child riding, and also her grossly overweight white female friend in the front seat.

So that left the back seat for all four of us (none of whom are under 6'1 and 200 lbs) to fit in the back seat.

At least I didn't piss on myself. At least, I think I didn't.

Dec. 31, 2007- Jan. 1, 2008:

Ah, last year. Last year featured another bowl game, except it was Virginia Tech vs. Kansas at the Orange Bowl in Miami.

I was actually in Blacksburg, meeting the friends with which I was going to go to the game with.

We went to a new bar, one that wasn't there when I was in school, and got wasted there.

I met the Ace of Hearts in the Official 2009 Hooter's Girls deck of playing cards, who happened to be a friend of the girl I was going to the game with.

Let me just say: she had the best pair of titties that money could buy. And I mean that. They cost her close to $9,000.

I also found out that one can drive close to 15 miles, even when one's car says that it only has enough gas to go zero miles.

This is sort of how it went down, except much more slurring.



So maybe I'll make some magic again this year. Who can say? But I hope you enjoyed this retrospective as much as I enjoyed remembering it.