Last time, I shared a story about my bizarre encounter with a scary-drunk dude named Dartanian. For scary story time this week, I’m moving the setting to Madison.
The headline is deceptive. This entirely true tale tells of much more than one sad night where I trudged home after being rejected by a girl. There actually weren’t any members of the opposite sex involved or broken hearts. It was cold though. And at one point I thought I might freeze to death in some random place I didn’t know at all.
Okay, this all will make sense at the end, I promise. Just take a minute and read about this dumb thing that happened to me.
Why did I get drunk, go to this concert on a Thursday night, hop on the wrong bus and wander around in an area I don’t know at all when I should have just stayed in because I had strep throat?
This was my first semester at UW-Madison, and I was—at this point in my academic career—all about the Wisconsin Idea. The idea of getting super drunk on a school night, because why the fuck not?
My bfffffffs all lived in Palisades sophomore year (I transferred if you were wondering). This particular Thursday, there were lots of party people bumpin’ at the ‘sades.
Since I transferred in the middle of the year, I had to find a sublet, which ended up being over by the hospital because it was the most reasonable place I could find at the last minute. And since I lived far as f from Vilas Hall, I learned how to use the bus system pretty damn well pretty damn fast.
In hindsight, I probably shouldn’t have gone out at all. By probably, I mean definitely. I was feeling just good enough in my recovery from strep throat that it didn’t kill to swallow anymore. Drinking doesn’t help you get over sickness, if you were wondering. Don’t even try to tell me otherwise.
So I hopped on the 2 at Forest, and headed over to the ‘sades for a night of serious boozing. Fug it.
While sitting on a soggy, blue-carpetted Metro Madison seat, admiring my fancy new leather shoes (such a trend-setter), I ran through my mental game plan: Don’t get too drunk, for the love of God, don’t get too drunk. Normally, getting blitzed wasn’t a huge concern, but at this awkward juncture, I still cared about making it to class and being a decent human on weekdays. Weird.
Almost immediately after entering room 504, it became apparent I would be getting too drunk. There was some band called Emancipator playing at some venue called The Majestic (transfer student stream-of-consciousness), and Pleb me needed to meet all the cool kids. Or else, I would be, like, a loser.
So we got super drunk and walked to The Majestic, no biggie. It was only the second week of Spring semester, thus, temperatures were in the single digits. Leaving my jacket at home was a poor decision. I’m just gonna check this out for a while, then head home at around midnight, eat a pizza and snug into bed. It’s the best of both worlds, kinda like Miley.
For some reason, I couldn’t for the life of me remember the name Emancipator. I kept calling them Incubator. I like that more, tbh.
I hated the music, and I was sweaty. Within 10 minutes, I was alone, the cool kids ditched me :(.
It was obviously time to leave, so I said “Peace” to nobody and walked out. Low and behold, the 2 was rolling around the Capitol—it was synchronicity, I swear.
It was only 12:30 a.m. at this point. I was doing good. In like 20 minutes, I would be in my apartment cooking a frozen ‘za.
But instead of continuing around the Capitol Square and heading down University as I expected, the bus went another way.
Okay, it’s probably going to turn at the next street... or the next one... or maybe this one. Nope. We took a turn down streets I didn’t know and soon ended up in a totally foreign neighborhood.
It’s fine, I’ll just stay on the bus until it gets to the end of its route, then it’ll turn around so I can just take it the other way. Nope.
A macabre notice went across the LED screen at the front of the vehicle, notifying the transport’s riders (me) this was the last run of the night and all passengers would have to get off.
Damn you, non-24-hour buses. I was totally boned. My drunk ass pulled the cord to make the driver pull over, and I got off in the middle of nowhere.
It was two degrees and dark (there were no street lights around). I was wearing this goofy orange-ish sweater my mom bought me as a going back to school gift. It was time to test out those new shoes. It was a long walk.
No gloves, no hat, no sense of direction, no balance, no self-respect, no clue what the f to do, I started walking where I thought I needed to go.
Soon I was running. Not because I wanted to, but if I didn’t, fingers would’ve started falling off.
In my mind I thought this was some kind of test. Have all my days spent jogging on the treadmill been in preparation for this? All this time I thought I was just trying to slim down a little bit, but actually, it was for survival purposes.
The problem about running when it’s two degrees outside is the cold makes your lungs hurt. Being drunk doesn’t help. At this point, I was still kind of paranoid about getting smacked with an underage ticket. How do I balance the scales between passing out, freezing and looking like a goofy criminal?
After about 45 minutes, I was back by The Majestic. I love wasting time. It’s a hobby of mine. The strep throat, which before going out had actually receded a decent amount, was back in full inflammation.
My fingers were slightly purple, so I went and got two slices of Ian’s, headed back to the ‘sades and drank away the stinging.
Needless to say, I didn’t make it to my 9:50. Hopefully this story made you feel a little better about yourself.
