Mom...

I'm starting to think that my Mom thinks I'm an alcoholic.

Don't get me wrong, I enjoy a good Appletini or a cold beer when I want to. There are even times I drink to excess. But those times are few and far between. I'm too old to be hung over all the time any more.

I believe that it all started when I was 23 and went to my cousin's wedding. It was an out of town wedding with a 4 hours drive one way. My parents decided to go a couple of days before and make it a mini vacation. They also said that we (my sister was 21) could just share their room the night of the wedding instead of having to pay for our own. They would live to regret that offer.

My sister and drove down to the wedding early Saturday morning and got to the hotel about 9:30. It was a long drive and an early morning. We hurried up and took showers and got dressed. The wedding was beautiful. 11:30 start time and it included the full Catholic Mass. Good thing I'm used to the full Mass. Anyway, we sat in that church for almost 2 hours. At 2pm we headed over to the reception at a local hotel (not our hotel).

In the lobby area of the reception there was a large group of people. In the middle of that large group was a bar. With beer. Free beer. Lots of it. See the problem? No? Well, it turns out that the bride and groom decided that they wanted to go bar hopping from the end of the wedding ceremony at 2pm to 5pm! So all the guests, mostly out of town guests, were at the reception lobby with no food and free beer.

Ahhh, I see that you've figured it out now. Yes, my sister and I had beer after beer after beer. After all, we did go to the number one party school in the state and this was a party. By 5:30 when the bride and groom finally made it to the reception my sister and I were feeling no pain, hell, I couldn't even feel my lips anymore. The doors to the dinner room opened and we were all ushered into dinner. We sat down and were searved our choice of chicken stuffed with crab and lobster or veal with something or other. Did I meantion that my sister didn't eat meat? Yeah, she was a vegetarian during college. Did I mention that drinking and rich food don't mix? Yeah they don't. So as there were no other meal choices I tried to pick the chicken out to eat without being obvious. My sister never ate.

Of course we kept on drinking. Free wine now. When the band started playing after dinner my sister and I were the first to get up and dance. Before the newly married couple. Opps. Yeah, probably our first in a string of things to go wrong. My Mom walked over and ushed us back to the table. Our uncles had noticed that my sister and Iwere "tipsy" and thought it was funny. You see, we're considered the "good" kids in our family. Anyway, they decided that they would keep buying us drinks to be entertained. We kept taking them.

By the end of the night my sister was hanging on the bartender (he was good looking) and I was playing butt quarters with the bride's father. My Mom was horrified. She took the quarter from me when it was my turn and made my Dad unwrap my sister from the bar to leave to go back to the hotel. On the way back to the hotel my sister and I had the giggles. This made my Mom more angry. Then my Dad was looking for a place to park and my sister kept telling him to park in a used car lot and wouldn't listen to him tell her he couldn't park there.

I went into the room and fell into bed and pretty much passed out. It was what I needed to do. My sister went into the bathroom. After a while my Mom woke me up and told me to get my sister. What the hell was I going to do? She was in the bathroom, not still in the bar. After much poking and proding from my Mom I got up to go to the bathroom & get my sister. Only that was a bad move. I now had to hurl. I kept pounding to get her to let me in and she wouldn't. So I hurled in her clothes at the bathroom door. Then my Dad jimmied the door open for me. My sister was hurling in the toilet and wouldn't share, so I got the sink. After that, things are fuzzy. But I woke up the next morning in bed.

My paernts came into the hotel room at 10 am and said they were going to breakfast and we had 1 hour to clean up the bathroom and room and leave. Turns out there were hurl all over the bathroom and they were embarrassed to leave it like that. We did the best we could and headed home.

It wasn't a good family bonding experience.

Since that time my Mom had made comments about drinking. The latest was in refrence to a new medication that I'm taking. She tld me, "You can have one or two drinks, but much more than that and you'll be in real trouble." Ummm, thanks. I told her that I pretty much haven't had any lately because it makes me feel worse. She looked at me like she didn't believe me and rolled her eyes.

Mom, I'm not a lush. Really.