In Vino Veritas

Saturday afternoons in college are a time of recovery and preparation. A time of remembrance and hope. A time of wife beaters and boxers.

It was in this state that my roommate T'Bot's girlfriend, the Wicked Witch of the West(ern part of New York), found my other roommate Joe Han and I, on a sunny Autumn day in the midst of our Junior year.

We had just eaten a late lunch and had settled in for a couple hours of college football before the topics of "showering" and "alcohol" were to be discussed.

WWW walked into our common room with conviction in her step and hatred in her eye (although this was omnipresent). She immediately started cleaning our rundown apartment for undetermined purposes. Joe Han and I were baffled by this behavior but were certainly not interested in bringing it to an end. We didn't question what was going on until the football game was turned off in favor of some adult contemporary radio station.

This served to rouse our anger and further our curiosity. We finally asked WWW what the deal was. She told us that her and her sorority sisters were having the pre-game to their formal in our apartment.

I almost threw up on her.

This bitchy chick was going to have her equally bitchy friends over to our apartment (with their dates) to pre-game to a formal we weren't even invited to? It was so preposterously ludicrous that I recall looking at Joe Han and breaking out in laughter. Anyway, she continued with her cleaning as we tried to figure out how this had happened.

About a half an hour later, WWW moved to the bathroom where she removed all the reading material she deemed to be objectionable (all of the reading material). It was with this step that we knew the Witch must die.

We went to the local convenience store where we picked up a copy of Big Black Tail, a monthly publication not known for its articles. On the cover was a portly woman wearing a thong, bending over, and looking back a the camera. We put this as the only reading material in our bathroom.

The looks on the faces of these wildly stuck-up sorority girls as they stepped out of our latrine was what Kodak moments are all about. Never has such horror given me so much pleasure. It was perfect and in short-order they would be leaving the pre-game and heading off to their formal never to return (hopefully) to our apartment.

The WWW made mention of leaving several wine bottle for the post-game.

When they left I looked at Joe Han and vowed not to rest until the remaining wine was finished. Two and a half magnums of red wine, or five bottles of regular wine, remained. I grabbed one full magnum and ran upstairs to where I knew drinking games had commenced. I put away the magnum in about an hour and returned to my apartment to pick up the other bottle and a half.

When I returned, our common room had filled with a bunch of friends watching a movie. The Dr. asked me what I was up to and I rehashed the story of the evening. I then told them that I had finished the first magnum and had another bottle and a half to go. This was met with protest, claiming that there was no way I could drink that amount of wine in one night. Already feeling a bit of the effects of the first magnum I met their scepticism with the only response I thought reasonable. I pounded the half bottle of red wine in one motion.

To this day I have no idea how I was able to chug that much red wine and frankly, it makes me a little queasy but it was quite a spectacle at the time. I remember seeing my friends look in awe (or disgust) as I started to get towards the end of the bottle. I then finished it, flicked it into the garbage to my side and walked out speechless.

The next thing I remember is waking up naked in the bathtub. I didn't really know how I got there, or why I was naked but I do remember who woke me up.

I wonder if WWW was more horrified by my naked body or the near naked body of Big Black Tail's cover woman. I'd lay about even odds. Regardless, of the bet, we were all winners that evening.