EtOH, Part II

My EtOH blog post remains one of my least popular of all time. So in the grand Hollywood tradition, naturally, it will be the one I pick for my first sequel.

In my defense, it’s not my fault. It’s sheer chance that the topic came up again. One of the major complaints that people have with it is that they don’t believe me that getting drunk doesn’t feel special to me. Now I’ll be the first to admit, I have no idea what being drunk is supposed to feel like for most people. But I recently discovered a way to more clearly illustrate what it feels like in my mind.

Earlier this week, I woke up with symptoms of an inner ear infection. I had one of those once in high school, so I knew what was going on. But my brain made a connection that it had never made before, and I thought of my EtOH post.

To the best of my knowledge, inner ear infections are relatively rare. I’m going to describe them for you for two reasons. First, this is probably going to be funny. Second, I at least try to make these posts make sense, even if I know in advance that my point will just annoy most people.

Now then, the story of me waking up with an inner ear infection:
--Alarm goes off.
--I push button on alarm. The act of raising my head off the pillow comes with a slight spinning sensation.
--I stand up. The room seems to be ever so slightly spinning.
--I walk towards my bedroom door, stumbling slightly.
--Miss the door and walk into the doorframe.
--Stop and ponder. Could have sworn I was on the correct course a second ago.
--Try again, managing to exit the bedroom this time.
--Room still spinning slightly.
--Walk towards bathroom.
--Impact wall with shoulder.
--Put two and two together and realize that at least one vestibular system is malfunctioning.
--Make joke to self about feeling like I’m drunk.
--Suddenly realize I actually do feel drunk.
--Conclude that being drunk feels exactly like an inner ear infection.

I don’t want to spend every Friday night pretending to have an inner ear infection. I should start using that line.

I think at this point we can safely conclude that somewhere in my subconscious is an unstated goal to stop getting invited to parties by the time I’m thirty.

My superego is less upset about that than you might think.