Episode 2: Alcohol

For the past month, there has not been one day where I have not drank some alcohol. Be it a casual beer in a not-so-sunny beer garden, a cheeky glass of wine with my boyfriend's mother, or an embarrassing bender with my friends (more often than not), I have swiftly undone my practically teetotal status of drinking the occasional Guinness, and providing care for the rest of the drunken louts that surround me.

Amongst my friends, we all agreed that we had not drank this much since we were underage, testing the boundaries of our limits, seeing exactly what spirits would push us over the rim of the toilet. There was one particular club in our area that would accommodate our underage needs, allowing us to enter its murky depths with a photocopy of our sister's passport, a student card that ever-so-obviously listed us as a sixteen year old, and on some occasions, even a bus pass would suffice. Dingy and dirty, we all wore black and flats to avoid sticking to the dancefloor. Not only was this a haven for the teens that entered its doors, it was a haven for all purses and wallets alike. Getting smashed on a £3.10 "pangalactic gargle blaster" was the highlight of the night. We immersed ourselves into this sci-fi underground, meeting people both 14 and 40, only to have to get a taxi into college the next day.

As the blog title suggests, my friends and I are now aged 20+. The last time I stepped foot into the said club I was a meagre 17, and ended up meeting someone who I definitely wish I hadn't met. Bad memories aside and nostalgia en vogue, my friends and I returned to the said club at midnight-- this being after our taxi driver stopped at a petrol station for twenty minutes, leading us to question his potential status as a serial killer. Late and bladdered, we were determined to wreak havoc on the place that had given us all of our alcoholic education, paying back the price for the stained clothes and gin- induced tears.

Disregarding The Smiths, Pixies and The Cure that was infiltrating the upstairs room, we moved over to the retro request book to taint it with three pages begging for some Kanye and Jay-Z, only to be told numerous times that "we do not play that sort of stuff here". Ending the request with Love Will Tear Us Apart, we lied and procured drinks by alternating between stage names such as Gertrude and Candice to confessing alternately that we were 15/30 today and if we didn't hear the radio shouting about fish fillet we would have to stamp on their toes. These minions walked up to the DJ, only to see his face reddening even more for one 5'2 creature to be victim of "IF ANYONE REQUESTS THAT SONG ONE MORE TIME I WILL THROW THEM OUT!". Oops. Needless to say, when I went to request Love Will Tear Us Apart once more, that didn't go down well either.

After pretending to be German, Swedish and Russian, we were catapulted out of the club fifteen minutes later, only just into the early hours and still desperate to party. Another club rejection down the line and a box of cheesy chips later, I passed out on my best friend's sofa. Now THAT is seventeen year old behaviour.

                                                           note: face hidden to hide shame.