by Tucker Max
2. Tell him you’re going to the bathroom, then leave.
I almost picked #2, but if I had, I’m pretty sure this story would have ended up like the last time I did that: with him stumbling into my place at 4am, falling through a glass coffee table, and tracking a pint of blood all across my apartment as he looked for a Band-Aid. #1 it was.
The one ugly girl in the group got up and went to the bar to get a drink. I walked over next to her and started a conversation. She seemed interested, the conversation was going great, and she invited me and D-Rock over to her table. We were literally a second away from going over, I was just waiting for the bartender’s attention to get a drink.
Tucker “This is so comical. I love how male bartenders always ignore dudes. Maybe I should go to gay bars, then I’d get served.”
As any good salesman knows, once you get the sale, you stop selling. This is because everything you say once the customer has agreed to the sale doesn’t make any more sales, but does risk losing the sale you already have. A lesson I should have applied. Instead I kept talking, and this came out:
Tucker “I almost wish I was gay, I feel like my life would be a lot easier. Women are crazy. That, and pussy has a troubling power over me. I’ll do anything for it.”
Her face transformed from the encouraging “I’m totally into this guy” look to the “Oh no, I attracted another dorky weirdo” look. It was obvious I was losing it. I racked my brain trying to think of a way to recover from that stupid fucking statement, and ended up here:
Tucker “Actually, I wish I was attracted to dogs. Then I wouldn’t have to deal with men or women, because let’s face it, people suck. Plus dogs are so obedient.”
I don’t blame her for leaving in disgust. I’d have left too.
D-Rock “You’re an idiot. We were in.”
The funniest part is that SHE WAS UGLY! How sweet is that irony? I flubbed an easy layup with an ugly girl. What a moron.
HELLO, NURSE
Occurred—February 2002
When I was living in Florida, I got into a bar fight one night. That story may sound good, but it’s not; it’s just as lame as every drunk bar fight with guidos. What happened the next day at the clinic, however, is worth writing about.
It’s always been something of a dream of mine to pick up a doctor or a nurse, in the office, during an exam, and hook up with her right there on the exam table. Sort of like real-life porn, except without having to fuck a used-up porn star with her “handler” watching from behind the camera. I was waiting in the exam room to get my hand looked at, and lo and behold, in walks a hot girl:
Tucker “Hello, nurse.”
Intern “I’m not a nurse. I’m a fourth-year med student interning here.”
Tucker “Oh, sorry. Well, nurse, intern, whatever you are, hot should be in the title.”
[Intern looks at me with a raised “are you kidding?” eyebrow]
Tucker “What, does ruthlessly hitting on you violate some doctor-patient code?”
Intern “No. It’s just kinda lame.”
Tucker “Well, excuse me, Miss I’m-Hot-and-I-Know-It, I was just trying to give you a compliment.”
Intern [smiles reluctantly] “OK, well, thank you. So, you are here because you think you broke your hand?”
Tucker “Yeah, I think.”
Intern “Where did you break it?”
Tucker “On some guy’s face.”
Intern [she can’t help but laugh] “Let me guess: You’re in a fraternity?”
Tucker “Why does everyone always assume that?”
Intern “I wonder.”
She then took out a Y fork (basically just a medical tuning fork), hit it on her thigh, and put it on my swollen hand.
Intern “Tell me if this hurts.”
Tucker “OWW! Yes! So, what do doctors look for in a patient?”
Intern “One who is mature enough not to get into drunk fights at frat parties.”
Tucker “Nice. In case it matters, I’m not in a frat, nor was I ever. This happened at a bar.”
Intern “Glad to hear you’ve matured since college.”
Tucker “So, how am I doing?”
Intern “Well, you have at least one and possibly two broken metacarpals.”
Tucker “No, I mean with you. Like, us.”
Intern “Us? Huh. I’ve seen terminal cancer patients with a better chance than you.”
Tucker “All right, all right, but have you seen terminal cancer patients as hot as me?”
She stopped and looked at me as if she just could not believe I said that, like it was almost beyond her ability to comprehend.
Intern “I’m sending you down to get some x-rays.”
Tucker “You’re sending me away? No further examination? No sponge bath?”
Intern “No. You’ll be just fine.”
Tucker “You took chemistry to get into med school. We should go out sometime.”
Intern “How about we make an appointment a month from now?”
Tucker “A month? Why that long? You have a boyfriend to dump?”
Intern “No. That’s when your cast will come off.”
I went back in a month, expecting her to be there, and I would get a chance to seal the deal. She wasn’t. Some male nurse took my cast off. And he mocked me ruthlessly for how badly I did with the intern during my last visit.
Nurse “She specifically took today off when she saw you were on the calendar.”
Tucker “Fuck you. I’ll recover from this and fuck a hotter girl; you’re always going to be a male nurse.”
Nurse “Yeah, but I hooked up with her.”
I gave up. He won.
MY 21ST BIRTHDAY
Occurred—September 1997
Everyone has those drinking nights that are complete disasters—I’ve made a living writing about mine. Perhaps one of my worst was my 21st birthday.
Growing up, I always hated my birthday. I can make up some bullshit reason why, but it wouldn’t be true. The reality is that I grew up in a broken home with an unstable mom, an abusive, alcoholic grandmother, and an absentee father. Birthdays for me were not about celebration and enjoyment of the day of my birth; they were about facing these painful realities head on. Who the fuck wants to do that? Not me. I avoided them and refused to have parties.
But once I left home and surrounded myself with good friends I picked, instead of crazy family I was assigned, I began doing birthday stuff again. I was in my third (and final) year of college when my 21st birthday came along, and my friends offered to throw me a small party.
The planning was led by two friends from my old dorm, Mark and Francis. My college friends don’t have the funny nicknames that my law school friends do, because the University of Chicago was so boring and socially retarded we didn’t do enough crazy shit for cool nicknames to develop organically. Don’t get me wrong, my friends were awesome guys, but there’s a reason my school’s unofficial motto is “Where Fun Goes to Die.”
The plan was to do my birthday shots at a bar and then head out to a party afterward. We got to Woodlawn Tap at about 7pm. Mark bought 2 pitchers for the table and a shot for me and him. Our birthday tradition, as is standard for my generation, is for everyone out with the birthday boy to buy 2 shots, one for themselves and one for the birthday boy. This pattern continues until the birthday boy has done one shot for each year of his life. Normally, the 21 shots are spread out over the course of many hours, beginning early and ending very late, thus hopefully avoiding alcohol poisoning.
Not this time.
My friends had convinced me they were taking me out for my birthday because they loved me. This was a lie. My friends decided that they were going to get me shit-housed, fucked-in-half, retard drunk, and they would do it as quickly as possible because—as I was graduating in just three years instead of the usual four—they wanted to take advantage of their last opportunity to get back at me for all the shit I’d done to them over the course of our friendship. Like
the time I took everything out of Mark’s room and set it up in the courtyard of our dorm, and then invited a bum to sleep in his bed. Or the time I stapled a pork chop to the bottom of Francis’s desk, and it stank so badly he was forced to sleep in the commons area for a week. And so on.
As soon as Mark and I finish our first shot, Francis has the next one waiting for me. Then another friend is right there with the next shot, followed immediately by another. I have not agreed to this plan, or even been informed of its existence, so after the fourth shot, I slam my beer chaser on the table and scream:
Tucker “HEY, GODDAMMIT! There will be a 5 minute wait between shots. And no fucking whiskey. Tequila or vodka only.”
Being such great friends, everyone respects my wishes. For about 5 minutes. Then the shots start coming quickly again. 3 minutes between shots. 2 minutes. 1 minute. Next thing I know, I have 10 shot glasses in front of me, and it’s only 8:15. I beg for a 20 minute break and receive a table full of condescension.
At this stage in my drinking career, I was not experienced enough to realize that the only way for me to salvage the night would be to run into the street and get hit by a car. Ten shots in an hour meant I was already doomed. At the very least I could have tried to force myself to vomit, ridding myself of the 15 ounces of hard liquor now metastasizing in my otherwise empty stomach. Not me. I remained in my chair and held up my part of the conversation by giving inebriated opinions in a volume appropriate for a helipad.
About 10 minutes later, someone places another shot in front of me. Vodka. I do it. Mister Stomach is not amused. Five minutes later, someone else places another vodka in front of me. I slam that one, too.
That’s it. The corner has been turned. I can no longer discern faces from furniture without squinting and concentrating. I blithely wave off the next shot, but the ensuing boom of castigation from the bloodthirsty savages I call “friends” somehow pushes the liquid down my throat.
This shot sends my body into fight or flight. My throat desperately tries to close up and reject it, but I keep my mouth shut and force it down. I try to get up to walk around, but my body does not respond. The environment around me has become a vague, shifting mass of irregular shapes and amorphous forms, accentuated by voices I seem to recognize. My only thoughts involve hurting those around me, but I am too afraid of letting go of the table to take a swing at them. I hear someone say something about a shot.
Tucker “Guys, please, seriously, please, I am begging you with my life, please, please, no more alcohol.”
Everyone has a good laugh at my expense, and another shot is placed in front of me.
Tucker “Guys, I can’t do this. Honestly, guys, my life is on the line here.”
The shot is held up to my face. The tequila smell is too much. I am repulsed and squirm away like I’m being threatened with waterboarding, fall out of my chair and onto the floor, the shot spilling onto my face and clothes. I look up pitifully at my friends.
Here’s the other thing you have to know about me: When I was 21, I was like the Benjamin Button of alcohol consumption. I was a regressive drunk—the more I drank, the younger I acted. A few drinks in and I’d be making poop jokes. When I got really drunk, I’d drool on myself and baby-talk to girls. By the end of the night, I’d be curled up in the fetal position, sucking my thumb, covered in my own piss and shit. I didn’t do this on purpose, but I was a fucking amateur in college, and that was how I dealt with alcohol at the time. Yeah, yeah, laugh it up shitheel. You ain’t better’n me.
The next thing I know my arm is around Francis’s shoulder and he is dragging me to the bathroom. Woodlawn Tap is a very old building and has only one bathroom. It is about four feet square with one sink, one frosted glass window about six feet from the floor, a wall-mounted soap dispenser, a door that doesn’t lock, and one lone toilet, the kind you find in a home bathroom, with the water tank in the rear. He put me in front of the toilet.
Francis “All right, go ahead and vomit.”
Tucker [sounding like a drunk baby] “Francis… I haz ta pee-pee.”
Francis “OK, then pee.”
Tucker “Buu… bu I can’t… I can’t… can you undo my shurts fur me?”
Francis “You can’t be serious.”
Tucker “Pleeeze? I havta pee bad.”
Francis “Oh great Holy Jesus.”
Francis holds his torso and face as far away from my midsection as possible while he undoes my belt and the button on my shorts, which immediately fall to the floor.
Francis “OH MAN, you’re not wearing any underwear!”
Tucker “I dun like it… it mates me feel constrict-ted.”
Francis “Jeeesus.”
He turns me to face the toilet. I just stand there.
Francis “Are you going to pee?”
Tucker “Yur makin’ me nerbous.”
A few seconds later the flow begins. I am holding myself up by pushing both hands against the wall behind the toilet, and my penis is caught in the lower lip of my shirt. As a result, my urine first collects in the lower half of my shirt, before overflowing onto the floor. I don’t notice. Francis does.
Francis “OH MAN, what are you doing? Oh, Tucker…”
Tucker [I turn and smile at Francis] “It feelz wurm.”
Francis “OHHHH… I’m not picking your shorts up.”
I finish peeing. As I lean down to pick up my shorts, my feet slip in urine and I fall on my ass, landing in the puddle of my piss on the floor. Francis groans as he helps me up. I manage to get my shorts zipped. My stomach is still upset with me.
Tucker “Francis, I doan… I doan… feel good.”
Francis “OK… then throw up. The toilet is right there. Go ahead, get it out.”
I start swaying. I can feel the vomit coming. Even though I know it’s coming, and it knows it’s coming, it seems to just hang there in my throat, teasing me, waiting, letting me contemplate just how stupid I am, my body punishing me just that little bit extra.
Then, as if it were shot out of a cannon, the vomit explodes from my mouth.
BLAHHHH!! BLAAAAAHHHHHHH!!
The force propels my upper body away from the toilet, and I vomit in the sink.
BLAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!
The force of the second diaphragm contraction is so strong it pushes my body and head away from the sink toward the far wall. Lost in agony and bile, I stumble over to the toilet, catch myself on the tank in the rear, pull off the lid, drop it on the floor, and vomit in the tank behind the porcelain bowl.
Francis “What, what… what the HELL are you doing? Vomit in the bowl… IN THE BOWL!”
I can’t hear what he’s saying, so I turn my heads toward Francis. My innocent look of confusion quickly turns to wrenching pain, as the fourth wave of vomit forces its way up my throat. I project this stream of vomit toward Francis, missing him only because he was sober and agile enough to dodge it, letting it splash instead all over the inside of the bathroom door.
Francis “JESUS CHRIST!!! WHAT ARE YOU DOING!?!”
Faint and staggered by such violent heaving, I stumble back toward the sink and grab the soap dispenser for stability. It is not designed to support such weight and promptly rips off the wall, falling to the ground. I catch myself on the sink and then vomit on the soap container on the floor.
By the time I was finished, I had heaved and convulsed too many times to count. The toilet tank had vomit in it. The window, six feet high in the air, had vomit on it. Even the outside of the toilet bowl had vomit sloshed on it. I managed to get vomit in the sink, on all four walls and the door, yet somehow I had spared the actual toilet bowl. Every container and surface in the bathroom had vomit in or on it, EXCEPT the one designed for that purpose.
To this day, I don’t know how I did it. Francis is no help, because he refuses to talk about the incident. It was like that scene in Pulp Fiction where the guy busts out of the bathroom and unloads point-blank on Jules and Verne but misses every sho
t. Divine providence, I guess.
Somehow tolerating both the urine and vomit my body was covered in, Francis pulled me out of the bathroom and managed to walk us to the table where everyone was sitting.
Francis “Guys, weneedtoleaveRIGHTNOW!”
Francis’s urgency was less a result of my condition and more fear of the Woodlawn Tap bartenders. They are old-school hard-ass Chicagoans. These are not the type of men who call the police. Had they discovered my mess while we were still there, they would have most likely made us clean it up, beat us savagely with sawed-off baseball bats, taken all the money in our wallets, thrown us into the street, then eaten some brats while toasting Coach Ditka.
Apparently, the panic in Francis’s voice was enough, and before I really understood what was going on, we were all out in the street.
It was 9:15, barely two hours into the night. And only 15 shots.
Francis and Mark took me back to my apartment. Everyone else headed off to the party. As we were walking, three girls came upon us. Their night was just beginning, and they were in good spirits. I, on the other hand, had my arms draped around the necks of my two friends, barely able to muster the strength to walk, my head hung in defeat, body dripping with exhaustion, drunk sweat, vomit, and piss.
Girl “Hey guys, what’s wrong with him? Is he OK?”
The girl seemed to be genuinely concerned about my welfare.
Mark “He’s fine, he’s just really drunk. It’s his birthday.”
Girl “Oh, hey, happy birthday!”
I slowly raised my head, focused my eyes, and sneered:
Tucker “FUCK YOU, WHORE!!!”
Francis and Mark whisked me away from the traumatized girls. When we reached my apartment, the three of them deposited me in my bathtub and turned on the water to clean off some of the vomit and urine. Then they fucking left me there to decide how to best arrange my room so that I could safely pass out. (This is perhaps the best illustration of what it means to go to the University of Chicago. While being one of the most intellectually rigorous schools in the world, it still took THREE of the best and brightest putting their heads together to figure out how to prevent their friend from aspirating his own vomit. And you wonder why I graduated in three years.)