The Bold, Naked Truth

There have been few times in my life in which I have lost all dignity. This may come as a bit of a shock to most of you. But, it's true. Even in the darkest of moments, even in the face of total embarrassment, I manage to gather up some of my dignity and hold my head high. In fact, I can't think of a single moment in which I've lost all dignity....that is... previous to last week.

I was at home - my parents' home that is. I feel really safe and comfortable at home. I don't have to be pretty or even particularly nice and people still love me. It's great. So, because of my high comfort level, I sometimes do things that I wouldn't normally do.

It's Thursday (Thanksgiving). We're at my BFF's house. There's lots of booze. And I start drinking. And drinking. And drinking. Then, I passed out in a chair. I awoke at 6 am. I drive home. Barefoot. I fall into bed in hopes to sleep it off.

Around noon on Friday, my mom comes into my room and announces that she wants us to all go eat as a family and then go shopping. I get out of bed, but realize I still have a lot of alcohol in my system. Being the clever girl I am, I force myself to throw up, thinking that will do the trick. I take a shower and we go to lunch. The whole family. Me, Brother, Mom and Dad. Precious. We go eat and maybe I don't eat as much as usual. No one seems to notice, fortunately, except for Brother because he actually saw my descent into drunken debauchery. Mom and Dad are shopping and Brother and I venture off in our own direction, but about 20 minutes later, I realize that I'm still not feeling so well. I make Brother go corral the parentals. It takes him FOREVER. In the mean time, I'm trying to sleep on a bench, but it isn't going very well.

Finally, we're in the car, but we can't find Dad. Mom has to drive around the parking lot for a minute until we find him wandering. The house is just around the corner. I think I can make it. But every bump in the road feels like a finger down my throat.

We're less that a half-mile away. I declare, "I'm going to throw up."

"Right now?" Mom asks.

"No, I can make it," I claim. But two seconds later, when we're approximately 50 feet from my parents' house, I realize I can't make it. I weakly bang on the car door. Brother understands.

"Stop now, Mom!!" Brother exclaims.

She stops. I fly out of the car and onto the neighbor's lawn. I immediately begin to empty my guts on the neighbor's lawn. The neighbor is standing out on his lawn, fortunately. He seemed to express some concern. Then the across the street neighbor comes out of her house. As I'm throwing up. Then the other next door neighbor drives by and stops to see if everything's okay. As I'm throwing up. It's possible that the whole neighborhood was out, but I just didn't notice them over all the throwing up I was doing.

As I finally stood up to walk the 50 feet back into my parents' house, I realized that was, hands down, the most undignified moment of my entire life... and possibly the lowest moment of my entire life as well, but that's hard to say since I don't really remember most of the events that led up to my puking in the neighbor's front yard.

And there it is. Let's hope it doesn't get much lower than this.