Accidentally Drunk in Portland

I hate it when I find myself accidentally drunk. I know the formula, but I usually look back the next day and say, 'Oh, that's what happened.'

It seems to happen most often when I have a series of social events, and too little food. So, for example, Saturday night… There was this little shin-dig downtown in, well, not the Pearl, but not Chinatown… 6th and Flanders, you decide. Seeing as you never know what parking is going to be like, we got there early, and went over to Gilt for drinks before hand. One drink, really, but man, that was a hell of a Bloody Mary.

So, then, on to this private swing dance party in a vacant storefront where they're serving lemon drops and cosmos. Two more drinks. Not bad over the course of a few hours. But, this does take my total up to three for the night, and I can't say for sure how much liquor they were pouring as that was not an OLCC bartender.

Back to Gilt for a little post party socializing, and two more drinks. Although the evening started about five hours earlier, I'm now up to five drinks for the night. Average of one an hour, and the pear brandy is particularly strong, but I'm still okay.

Still feeing fine, and not really wanting to go home just yet, we stop at a little dive I know of on the east side (no, there weren't any strippers). One shot of Pendleton and I'm fine. One more, just to be social, and BAM! It all caught up.

I think what's eeriest about that kind of drunk is that my body was drunk but I was still very cognizant. I mean, I had that, 'Oh, fuck… I'm unable to enunciate' moment. No denial about being drunk, more of like when you hit the ice while driving. You're fully aware of the situation, but there isn't a whole hell of a lot you can do about it.

Fortunately we weren't downtown, so, after sitting on hold for awhile, the wait for the cab was only like ten minutes. I remember sending myself an email from my phone, in part to test my dexterity (it sucked) and in part to remember a great scam if you were so inclined to be an amoral son of a bitch.

Think about it -- two in the morning, really drunk people are scattered around the city, just sitting out on a curb waiting for a cab which may or may not come. Listen in on radio chatter, and you know exactly where the poor fools are.

It was that kind of drunk; the one where you're so aware of it, that paranoia strikes. But it's Portland, near Ladd's Addition, not exactly a frightening place, and the cab did show up in short order and everyone got home safe.