Flashback to freshman year: a friend of mine got wildly drunk one night in the house a bunch of us shared. It was London and we were free to drink to our heart’s content, but still, as a rule, “safely.” I would say that the antics we all got up to weren’t too bad considering: first semester in college, abroad in a bustling city, with sweat fueled night clubs around every corner. However, that one night that friend of mine succumbed to his Party Goblin and left a mess in his wake.
What’s a Party Goblin? Well, everyone has one. It’s a little creature that sleeps on the bottom bunk of your subconscious in a huddle of spilled monster, regret, and leftover lo mein noodles, waiting to be woken by just the right amount of vodka. At which point she awakens in a fervor and takes control. As comedian Iliza Schlessinger would say:
“Some people’s Party Goblin is quiet, some people’s Party Goblin loves to steal ambulances, some people’s Party Goblin loves to dance on tables, and some people’s Party Goblin loves to get in cars with strangers. Everyone’s Party Goblin is the worst version of yourself on your worst night at college at your drunkest. She’s 10 pounds heavier, in a pair of cheap shoes, an ugly skort or something, and bad hair extensions, eating garbage off the floor, pizza at 5 a.m., crying #truestory.”
From that description I can only imagine your Goblin gets worse as you age. Suddenly it’s a lot easier to get drunk and there’s not #collegelife to fall back on.
People get crazy when they are drunk – a year or so into college and I’ve already learned. People try to pee out windows, cuddle you till you’re blue in the face, and steal stuff. One friend of mine was hell-bent on climbing a tree in the middle of Central London. Then, of course, I am sure you’ve all heard of the really scary stories where people go back to the houses of creeps or insist on fucking behind a dumpster. The Party Goblin is not always your friend, in fact, she usually wants to get you into deep do-do.
Okay, so now that there’s been an explanation of what the Party Goblin is I can continue the story of my friend who got crazy drunk in London. This wasn’t his first time drinking, but it was one of the first times he had let loose in the Square Mile. He starts the night, all of us just hanging out, talking, and reveling in our newfound freedom. All is well, until he pours a few too many back. You know the story: one guy gets super tipsy, more than everybody else, and it’s late but he wants to keep partying. And his Party Goblin is telling him to rage-like dance on the table and kiss everybody in sight, kind of raging. By that point, a lot of us had gone to bed. It was college kid late and the sun was coming up, but he was still going.
“I’m not drunk,” he would complain as he fell against his roommate, who was attempting to get him into bed. “I’ve been drunk and I know what I’m like,” all his words slurred, “Not drunk.”
When you’re drinking it doesn’t matter if you think you’re drunk or even if you actually aren’t drunk, maybe you are just tipsy. What does matter is if you’re tripping down the stairs and upsetting the neighbors. Doesn’t matter where you think you are on the imbibed scale.
He was drunk by our standards. Enough that he was leaning on the refrigerator to stop from falling, encouraging a few kisses he definitely regretted later, and hauling his ass to the bathroom to—well—puke it all up.
That’s not all though, because it gets better. After we thought he had settled down and gone to sleep, he gets back up. He takes off all his clothes-luckily his underwear were still attached-and runs downstairs to bother another flat.
Somewhere along the way he acquired a bag of cheese curls. There’s a lot of things a mostly naked man in a flat full of girls could, in his drunken mind, do with cheese curls, but he decided to spill them all over their living room floor. Then, because he was still recovering from the “dranking,” ran to the girl’s bathroom and projectile vomited.
Talk about a Party Goblin out of Control.
Quote from an interview with Iliza at: http://www.marieclaire.com/culture/news/a13104/comedian-iliza-shlesinger-new-netflix-standup-special/
