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R. Linda:
Let me say I did not get a hangover from any New Year's Eve revelry. No, we spent the evening watching Fawlty Towers because the two old people from the UK don't spend THEIR New Year's Eve watching crowds in New York's Times Square, nor pop singers in crazy outfits do "their thing." No, they watch episode upon episode of some funny comedy show rerun from centuries ago that goes all night long. In their case, it is usually Father Ted. However, since there were no funny British comedy shows on, and I do have the Fawlty Towers Collection (a birthday present from last year), it was decided I should break that out and stick it on, and sit back and laugh.
With little choice, I did. Then because me parents are not drinkers per se' we were subject to "Nice fresh cuppa tea." Oh yes, me fav, thank you Mam -- NOT. So we drank tea and had tea biscuits and watched Basil Fawlty impersonate my life on the silver screen. I could relate to Basil's frustration with his little woman I could. The only thing Basil was missing was a set of parents. Yes. Lucky Basil, sad old me!
I couldn't hear the jokes for the laughing and talking. I tell ya, I could have sat there with earplugs and had the same experience. So come midnight, we clinked our teacups together, wished each other a happy new year, gave a peck and a hug, and it was OVER.
The next day, YESTERDAY, I more than made up for me lackluster New Year's Eve, because it seemed to be party all day long. Food and wine and lots of it. Since the parental units be leaving soon, our neighbours wished to bid them adieu, and Tonya had told them all to drop in anytime New Year's Day, she'd have food and drinks available for anyone wanting to "drop by." In New Hampshire you just don't "drop by," you spend some time. Yes, you do; you don't stay a few minutes; no, no, you stay ALL DAY LONG and, in most cases, into the night!
Here's what happens: You come in, you are greeted, and you greet back, then you are shown into a room where the parents are standing like the King and Queen in a reception line, you say your bit, usually takes five minutes of that, then move yourself into the dining room or kitchen, whatever your pleasure, and feed at the trough, I mean table while the rest of the neighbourhood does the same, the chattering reaching high decibels, and your sense of reality becoming impaired as you knock back drink after drink that you don't realise you are doing because your senses are somewhat numbed by the whole idea of so many talky, drinky people all in one room.
Sometime later, when you have gathered your senses somewhat, you find a comfy place, eat and laugh, and generally have a good time, completely forgetting why you dropped by in the first place. Yes, that's how it works. Most of me neighbours are of Irish descent so there is always Irish whiskey open about the place, the rest are of French Canadian descent so there is vino, hard liquors of all kinds and fireworks. Yes, fireworks! There is nothing the French Canucks like more (besides a good rowdy brawl) than fireworks. These they will eventually find even if you have hidden them in your closet, and with everyone in tow, out the backdoor they will go to set them off, every last 958 of them!
Once you've had your eardrums blasted out of your head, you lurch for the liquor because you have no choice. No, a glass of something that's been mixed together will be shoved in your hand with a "Try zis you will leek it," and well why not? You stand in the middle of your own living room, your clothing blackened from gunpowder, your shirt ripped where the "rockettes" had gone towards you instead of skyward, and your hair and eyebrows are pretty well singed from "sparklers." Yes, by then, you need a drink or two, or three or . . .
Later that night, when everyone has left you quite a mess inside out, you stand there in the sudden quiet and realise your brain is banging away inside your skull to get out. You fall down because sitting isn't an option at this time. Your mouth is bone dry, so much so that you know what the mummies must feel in those expansive tombs of theirs in that dry desert. Your entire body feels like Muhammad Ali has used you as a personal punching bag, not to mention the ringing in your ears that sounds like a plague of locusts has landed in your living room, OR the bells of St. Mary's are on autopilot and won't stop ringing, or both!
Lying prone on the floor, not able to move without the brain making a clatter and causing the eyesight to do horrible things, I notice a pair of feet, dressed in old lady shoes standing next to me sad self. I forced meself to look up at me dear old sainted, apple cheeked, grey haired Mam, who "tsked" at me and made some disparaging remark, of which I could not hear for the bells and locusts. Next thing I'm being airlifted, well it felt like that, as me old Da is propping me up against the sofa and me Mam is shoving two raw eggs in a glass into my hands. They looked like yellow googly eyes! Talk about sick, I croaked the word out, and they removed the sight from me blurred vision.
Next came the water—lots and lots of water, so much so that I felt like I was at sea, which did me no good at all because now I was feeling distinctly seasick on top of everything else. The water was taken away, except for one glass, and the Tylenol was handed over. Somehow, I managed to pop two tablets down, waiting for them to take effect. NOTHING! Notta a bit of help from the pharmaceutical portion of remedies.
Back came the egg eyes, and I pushed them aside as a jar of pickles was opened under me nose. Talk about offensive. The smell of pickled anything was enough to kill me. "What is this?" I whimpered me brain now laughing in me skull at the amount of pain the olfactory senses where now contributing to me already severe impairment of human movement and feeling.
"Oh, the Polish people think this be a right cure," me Mam said, offering the jar to me again. I pushed it away and shook me head which was the wrong thing to do, because me brain was sloshing against either side of me skull, and man oh man the pain from that action just about made me pass out. Actually, I think I did, but I can't remember, which be probably a good thing.
"Come on there, Gabe, let's get ya up and sweat the alcohol out of ya," me Da said, grabbing hold me arm and trying to lift me up. Well, I was no help in the lifting process because the change of levels was making me head spin, and so I was back down on the floor and so was he for putting his back out. Wonderful, so now we both were sitting propped up against the sofa, groaning.
He was given a Tylenol for his trouble and pain, and the two of us were left to fend for ourselves, which was more our wish that every helpful person would just go away and let us die in peace. But that didn't exactly come to pass; no sooner was Mam and Tonya in the kitchen that I spied two sets of small feet standing in my face where I must have passed out on the floor. I looked up, and the taller of the two said, "Hahaha! Look how red his eyes are. He looks like Megatron on a bad day, hahahaha!" And the other one, in his baby gibberish, stood there and cursed at both me and Da. There wasn't a bloody thing either of us could do about it. Then to add insult to injury, he gave me a kick in the shin to see if I was still alive, and before he turned on his heel and left with the knowledge I WAS, me brain screamed so loud inside me head, I freaking passed out! Ordinarily, I'd have got meself up and told him he couldn't do that, but truly, besides the indignity of paying dearly for drinking too much, he was in the right he was. Da and I were not supposed to be on the clean floor -- MOM CLEAN UP ON AISLE FIVE -- Guido hates things out of place, and we were just that, eyesores.
"What's that awful smell?" I asked my groaning Da.
"Irish breakfast," was the answer.
Oh yeah, me Mam's remedy was if nothing else works, feed the hangover. I lay there in agony thinking of the greasy egg eyes now fried up, floating down me gullet, the potatoes and grease encrusted bangers following suit and, oh my God, I tried to keep from being sick right then and there. When there she was, me grey-haired Mam ordering the two of us up, up, up.
"Nooo," I groaned.
"Gabriel, I made black pudding, I've slathered the soda bread with lots of butter," I groaned louder, "and I have made you a great big cuppa tea." I could hear my brain screaming inside my skull, "NO, NOT TEA!"
"Mam, yer gonna kill me!" I managed to get out of me cotton dry mouth.
Well, Da managed to crawl on all fours into the kitchen for HIS breakfast. He wasn't missing all that—no, not him, but me. I was left to sleep it off. That is until Tonya tried her hand at the 'cure.' She came in with me bathing trunks and a towel, "Here, put these on and let's go."
I looked up at her like she was crazy.
"What you mean let's go? Go where?" I croaked up at her, totally confused.
"Out to the bog. A good cold swim will fix you."
"WHAAAT?" Oh, I paid for the shout I did; the brain reminded me it was still partying on without me, and I fell back against the sofa, the pain riding me like a racehorse.
"Gabe, the shock of the cold water will make that hangover disappear," she said, standing with towel in hand.
"You're insane," I squeaked, "it be zero degrees outside."
"And I have some hot tea for when ye coom out a da cold water, I do," pipes up Mam.
"Go away, please, both of you," I whimpered.
"The fresh air will do you a world of good," Tonya said, not budging.
"Leaving this spot be not an option," I told them emphatically.
"Here, drink this," Da said, handing down a glass of the hair of the dog, which set me brain into convulsions. I did notice he was upright and had a bacon and egg sanny in his hand that he was munching on as he contemplated his hungover son.
"I am crawling off to me bed to contemplate suicide. Please, everyone, just leave me to it," I said, and I crawled to the stairs, all of them watching me. Me Da munching on his sannie, me Mam sipping the huge cuppa tea and Tonya scowling at me, towel in one hand, the other on her hip, and the two wee ones were pointing and laughing, having a gay old time at my expense.
So it's been about five hours, and I be feeling anything but well. The partying brain is letting up and keeps it to a low roar unless I move, then it's bang, bang, bang like construction is going on inside. I've a line of teacups (oh yeah) lined up on the bedside table. Every one of them is untouched (the old woman would come in and find the cup she brought in half an hour ago tepid, so she'd bring another hot one, oi!). The boyos have chased the cat over me once, and I somehow scraped meself off the ceiling and me brain was having a field day with the movement. Tonya has put a pail next to the bed should I feel the contents of me tum marching up for fresh air. Yup, so nice they all be to a dying man. SIGH.
I will be so glad when all this stops. I reckon another eight hours, and then I might be able to stand without swaying.
Gabe
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