When the wind and sleet and snow threatened mid-day, it seemed best to both postpone the car trip and skip the concert. In the morning with clear skies and dry roads, we'd meet up for lunch after the drop and enjoy the ride home together. It was a bummer that the tickets were going to waste, but our fool-hardy days gave way to wisdom of the aged decades ago. When the weather outside is frightful, I might be better off staying warm, safe and comfortable watching a movie.
While my husband talked about movies to watch, my phone announced a message. “Are you sure you don’t want to come up for the concert? Doesn’t look like traffic is too bad…” We got to the eatery and music venue by 7pm, proud that we weren’t fuddy-duddies after all.
We had dinner and a beer while we waited for the concert hall to open.
By 9 we ordered another beer, listened to the warm-up band and watched the eclectic mix of folks coming into the concert. We lost track of time, but it sure seemed like a long wait for the headliner, The Werks, to start their show. It could have been 11pm by the time we got a 3rd beer. Moving to the front of the crowd, we had a great time, up close and personal, as the band rocked the house. I came to the concert thinking they were a cover band after finding them doing a Doobie Brothers song on YouTube. It sounded a little rough, but this is a beautiful song!
I expected a pretty good concert.
Way, way better than expected. Me at a concert is not at all who you would expect either, if you knew me. I’m all in, even while nursing a beer for an hour. At some point, D got us each a glass of wine, which I found hard to hold onto while fist-pumping, swaying and bouncing to the music. When she got another round, I sipped it a bit, but I’d rather dance than worry about splashing. I put it down. I backed up to grab a napkin from the bar and noticed that the man next to here was too close and about to get handsy. As I drew her away, the concert ended anyway. We made our way out the door, suddenly feeling drunk. A man commented that we were really drunk. That sure seemed to be the case! D answered, “It’s a good thing we got a taxi!” We couldn’t find the red Jetta from Lyft that I managed to request and I got a notice of a $5 no show charge. D ordered one from her phone while I tried to figure out what went wrong. Just as her taxi pulled up, the man shouted at us something. I really don’t know what he said, when he said it, or other details between leaving the building and waiting for Lyft to pick us up. It seemed like he was saying it was his taxi, but somehow I knew it was ours and we climbed in. It seemed like that was the guy closing in on D a few minutes before we decided to leave.
We have only bits of memory from those last 15-30 minutes, but we did get home and into pajamas before falling asleep by 1am. Dinner followed by 4 or 5 drinks over 6 hours of fun ended kinda blurry.
I woke up at 8am and hoped to feel well enough to start our road trip by 10am. As drunk as we supposedly were, I wondered if I could manage my typical yogurt and cup of coffee in the morning. It wasn't as bad as expected. After discussing the strange experience, we started our trip in separate cars, meeting again in a couple hours after dropping off the car. We talked over lunch again about how we became suddenly and unexpectedly drunk, without significant after effects. She remembered feeling like she was walking crooked outside, but didn’t feel drunk until that moment. Me neither! I asked the google about our symptoms. According to Moderation Management, we didn’t drink enough to be so out of it, but obviously shouldn’t drive. We knew that already, but we didn’t know how we got from borderline impaired/intoxicated to losing our mind! And I didn’t understand how I didn’t have much of a hangover. It’s been a long time since I got THAT drunk, but I still remember what it felt like the morning after. At my age, I should have been hugging the toilet. Instead I just felt a little weak, like I needed some protein.
Maybe that guy who harassed us outside, who was also was getting too close to D near the night’s end, had spiked our drinks. What else could explain our mismatched symptoms? I agree with D that we’re middle aged women who don’t get hit on in clubs and not the typical target for GHB. She is still a bit cynical of this theory. It seems unbelievable. Maybe we just can’t handle alcohol like we used to.
I learned that GHB takes affect within 15 minutes and, though highly intoxicating, doesn’t have similar hangover effects. I don’t have to explain the motives or the plan of the spiker to know that making it home safe and sound was lucky! I’m not trying to be scared, flatter myself, or scare others. My reason for telling you my story is so that you know how quickly we went from buzzed to blitzed. If you recognize these symptoms, it could be happening to you and you have a very short timeframe to get yourself to safety.