The First Firsts - Absinthe Brings The Pain

This was a weekend oriented around some interesting "firsts."

Friday night I went out with some friends to a local watering hole called TUN. TUN's a melting pot of East-meets-West that's roughly 50/50 (depending on the night) foreign to Chinese customers. Its also CRAZY packed on Friday nights. That's because its ladies night - girls drink absolutely free from 9pm to midnight. And even for us guys, drinks are pretty cheap - $4 gets you a jack and coke.

Anyhow, I went with some folks from work and then we met up with some Chinese friends of theirs. As we made introductions, the friends-of-friends announced they'd had a REALLY long week and wanted to tie one on to unwind. "Charlie can help you order," they were informed by my astute colleagues, " he knows all about this."

Now... of course I knew what to get them, but I felt like some precautionary disclaimers were in order. I shared with them how, true story, the week before I'd sat at that same table, in that same chair, and watched a gaggle of laowai schoolteachers drink themselves blind before one (a heavyset German gal) passed out in a heap of her own sick.

My new Chinese friends weren't having any of it, though. "We're CHINESE," they insisted, "we drink Baiju all the time at work and never pass out or barf." Okie dokie. The rest of the evening played out as you would imagine. I like to remember it as a series of smash-cuts, like you would see in a movie:

10:55 Charlie orders a round of Absinthe.

11:01 Round of absinthe arrives. Everyone drinks - its their first experience with Absinthe. Even the tough Baiju drinkers wince.

11:16 My new Chinese friends tell me how great I am and that America's so much better than France. "Frogs suck" I'm informed. Farbeit for me to disagree...

11:21 Erin (names changed to protect the innocent) goes down for the count. She sleeps peacefully on the table. Jimmy (also a pseudonym) dances like a retarded monkey, grinning from ear to ear, as happy as anyone I've ever seen.

11:31 Erin turns a disturbing shade of green, lifts her head, and projectile vomits all over the table next to us.

11:32 Erin collapses in a heap, totally unconscious. Jimmy continues to dance around, oblivious, smiling like a 8 year-old kid on Christmas morning.

11:33 I pronounce our evening officially dead and we haul Erin outside and pile into a taxi. I think she's breathing. Jimmy begins to cry unconsolably. "No body loves me," he wails, "I've got nothing. Nobody. My life is so awful." He howls like a new widow the whole way.

The rest of its just a bunch of struggling to drop off superunbelievablydrunk people and really not worth smashcutting to.

So... the first first was Jimmy and Erin's virgin experience with Absinthe. I think its safe to assume neither will revisit the Green Fairy again anytime soon.

Next post tease: My first time having a guy rub my butt.