Last night, I was working here at the Security desk as usual, when someone came up here and cleaned their hands with their hand sanitizer key chain. First off, I thought it funny that she had a hand sanitizer key chain in the first place, but when I caught a whiff of the alcohol that was wafting from her fingertips, all I could smell was Vodka. It actually smelled a lot like Vomitorium brand Vodka. (just seeing if you're paying attention). But no, seriously, the scent of Vodka on a Friday night made me feel 17 or 18 again. It's amazing how one drinking experience can leave such a lasting memory on you, especially, a bad memory.
You always meet someone who says something like, "I can't eat or drink anything that smells like peaches, because I drank too much schnapps when I was 16 and puked all over my mom's mini-van. If I smell peaches, I want to hurl." ...Or something along those lines. Everyone knows that if you drink too much, it can cause you to spew. No one likes to barf, but it happens. So you try to avoid puking at all costs. If something reminds you that what this does is cause you to puke, even if it's something as harmless as peach-scented air freshener, it triggers something in you brain of a time long ago, in a different time of your life when that scent, that action, caused an adverse reaction, one in which you would like to avoid. Thankfully, I have not such experience, except for the 151 incident at Crawford's back in 2001...but that didn't leave a lasting memory on me. I mean, not in a puking way. It did, however, make me not like to drink liquor, whether it's in shots or mixed drinks. It gives me the chills and makes me want to...hurl. So I guess it's not so much the scent that does it to me, but more the burning sensation in my throat.
The main thing this woman unintentionally did was conjure up a memory of my first time ever drinking. It was, as you could have guessed, Vodka. Not just any Vodka, by the way, but 5 O'Clock Vodka.
In my research of 5 o'clock vodka, was looking for a website or something to site something about the company. I guess they don't have one, because why would anyone want to go to it. The shit is terrible. What I did find is a product called the Vodkastick, which filters out impurities in cheap vodka, I guess. Serious sidtrack there...
No, seriously, the first time I drank it was in a friends basement, drinking 5 o'clock out of a little plastic cup, like the kind you might find as a rinse cup for their kids after they brush their teeth. He just poured me a cup full, and I just sipped on it. Then, once I had drank about half of it, I added some coke to it, to make it about half coke, half cheap vodka. Can you understand why I don't like Vodka, to this day?
I will admit I have drank some more quality vodkas since then, and have enjoyed it, but it still gives me the chills a bit. That night could have gone very badly, very quickly for me. I did not understand the power of hard liquor at the age of 17. I watched as a friend had a "shot contest" with another partier, and was promptly carried out of the house, with everyone in quite the panic, because of, first of all, the underage-ness of her, and all of us. Secondly, her dad was a cop. Third, she drank way too much and we were worried about her life, a little bit. That part was probably blown out of proportion, because we were kids drinking, and we were not that cool, so we figured the worst would probably happen. It didn't, and all ended up being OK, but I think that situation could have gotten a lot of people in a lot of trouble. So that's how one drinking experience can have a lasting memory. If she hadn't drank too much and passed out and had all those problems, I probably would have been her, because I didn't know what I was doing, and I wouldn't have known when to stop. I learned a valuable lesson on how to know when you've had too much to drink, and it stayed with me these past 10 years. Now when I smell hand sanitizer, it makes me think of responsibility. Also, it makes me think of trying to play a guitar while shit-faced, and smacking it off stuff, while other sober folks try to coax me to put the instrument down, for the instrument's sake...
I'll never forget that night.
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