My farewell party was at the Premier Championship Wrestling (PCW) show on Thursday, September 2003. If memory serves, it was annual the “Back to School Bash” show. At the time I was a big pro wrestling fan, and had been going to weekly PCW shows for over a year. There was a core group of us that would always go to the shows including The Ex (also a pro wrestling fan), and a few of the frat boys. Not only was I a regular, but I was also the undisputed wrestling trivia champion. Since this was a special occasion pretty much the entire fraternity chapter showed up. PCW ran all of their shows out of a local bar located close to the University.
The problems started when almost everyone wanted to buy me a farewell drink. When I mean everyone, I mean the fraternity brothers and some of the other regular wrestling fans. Being a fun, friendly guy I didn’t refuse any drinks at all. The promoter made a point of telling the crowd that it was my farewell show, and got me into the ring to demonstrate my beer chugging abilities. I also got to be part of an in ring angle where one of the wrestlers had a shocking revelation about his personal life. My job was to wait for the signal and then hit the mat and bail out of the ring in a hurry. Considering how drunk I was at the time it is fortunate I didn’t end up falling on my head.
At some point my brain went into survival mode and I started giving away the drinks that people were bringing me. Memories get fuzzy later in the evening, but I ended up puking an ungodly amount beer and awful shots in the bathroom, and then went to sit with another group of regulars for the end of the show to avoid further free drinks. My last memories of the wrestling show were of Mentallo winning a championship and getting into someone’s car to go back to the fraternity house. My next memories were at the fraternity house. A few people were trying to convince me to drink water while I was sitting on the floor in the bathroom, hanging onto the toilet for dear life. My brain, still in survival mode, convinced me that they were trying to give me more alcohol, so I flat out refused to drink anything else.
The problem with drinking stories is that some of them start fun and end fun. Others start fun and end badly. This was one of the “ending badly” stories. To be continued…
Drinking in Japan 