My First Drunk

Picture it, Sicily 1922, a young peasant girl…..oh wait, this isn’t the Golden Girls. Damn, ok, moving on. My first drunk, well, sufficed to say was in Europe, Madrid to be exact. The year Nineteen Hundred and Ninety, my age, exactly 16. I spent my sixteenth birthday on an exchange trip to Spain, one which I didn’t thoroughly appreciate fully until I was older. Youth really is wasted on the young.
I was traveling through Spain during Semana Santa, or Holy Week. Those Catholics in Spain take that shit seriously! Processions up the wazzou! So, one night my group of fellow students and I and our teacher were at a tavern in the Plaza Mayor, a grand Plaza in Madrid – it’s “muy famoso” to bring anyone out there who’s not familiar with it up to speed. This was to be my first experience with Sangria. I stood approximately 5 ft. 6 inches tall at the time and probably weight about 125lbs or so. My liver was so clean at this point in my life you could have used it as a swaddling cloth for a newborn baby and the baby would have infected my liver. My system was clean and virginal…ahh the good ol’ days.
So the group of us is in this rustic, centuries old tavern eating Tapas, a traditional Spanish course basically of hor d’ourves but Spanish style, when a pitcher of Sangria was brought to the table. Now, I’d never tried an ounce of alcohol in my life before this fateful moment and wasn’t too keen on starting, but I played along as I didn’t want to be a total wet blanket. They were served in little shot glasses and to me it was the most horrible waste of time and total abuse of my taste buds. Bleck! Sour, nasty, bitter, yuck! What were you guys thinking? So, I kept with the tapas…for the moment anyway. Soon another pitcher was brought to the table and this one looked like it had more fruit in it so I decided to try to be macho (HA!) and keep up with the rest of the teenage girls (real females, not gay boys) who were slugging this shit back. Gulp! Ok, I’ll try one more then I’m really done! Gulp! Hmm…that last was wasn’t “so bad”, how come they taste a little better now? They must have changed up the recipe in this last batch or something.

Shot number 4. Shot number 5. Samantha! I yell at my little Amiga sitting across from me, don’t let me have anymore after this one – cut me off! Gulp! And before she can take my shot glass away from me I practically take a swan dive for the pitcher! I gulp down number 7 and then number 8 before she can get my tentacle hands off the pitcher for good - that’s a wrap folks! Jason is DaaRUNK! Laughing, giggling, eating, and laughing some more.
Then it’s time to go, but all of the sudden it’s around midnight, where did the time go?? As the cohort of us ramble our drunken asses (or was it just me?) down the 350-year-old stairs to the cobblestone sidewalks out front, I turn back to my teacher, whose Sangria cheeks are plum, and say “Sshh!! Don’t tell my mother!!” LOL!. She looks me square in the eye and says, “I won’t if you won’t!” And then it happens. No, not the barfing, I don’t remember getting sick or a hangover. But I do remember something that startled me, a lot.
Procession participants carrying huge wooden crosses that are probably 9 ft tall, clanging chains, people flogging themselves in holy servitude greet us outside then I see “them”. My first-time-drunk ass, see’s a number of pointy dunce caps – except they’re not white, they’re black. I can’t figure out what I’m looking at until it all makes sense in a flash!! The HUGE wooden crosses and now the guys walking down the street with chains wearing long robes, full face masks and pointed hats: OH MY GOD!! IT”S THE KU KLUX KLAN!! I scream, as my teacher hastily covers my mouth with her hand as I descend into sangria laden panic! Ma Lann Ma Lann I try to muffle out as her hand is vice gripped around my drunk ass mouth, trying to warn everyone to run because the Klan is in Spain! Didn’t my teacher understand, half of our group was Mexican American, they were surely endanger!! We had to run!!

Welcome to the future class of Alcoholics Anonymous 2009 Jason – we’re holding a seat for you.