Woeful Sunday

I had two drinks last night.

Actually, I’m not sure I even finished the second one.

Result?

I awoke at midday feeling like the night had been passed somewhere south of Nevada, surrounded by cacti and on that side of the Mojave that is short on oases.

Mouth parched, eyes prickly and reluctant to address the cruelty of daylight.

Some air, I thought. That will provide the antidote that I can no longer seek in the beauty of painkillers and the power of limitless fluids.

Oh, what a mistake. The motion of constant movement, the scents of hedge-rows and car fumes and unhygenic dogs, all serving to make my delicate stomach even more uneasy.

The key to not puking is distraction. I considered which was the more acceptable – to throw up on the sidewalk and make it the city’s problem, or throw up in an individual’s garden/driveway, and risk being impolite to that one householder.

I'm still torn on that one.

I made it around the block to the shop. Solid food was required, but oh mercy, the smells from the deli counter. I took three steps back, and shouted out my order from a distance.

Deli girl gave the most unsubtle of eyeball rolls to her colleague. She should have been thanking me for saving her a lunch break of mopping up sick from the tiles around her station.

Holding the food at arm’s length, I managed the remainder of the journey home and forced the overdue soakage down.

It solved the queasiness.

I kept my eyes open long enough to watch the Greens’ press conference and to experience an embarrassing level of excitement at the thought of an imminent general election.

‘Tis no wonder the teachers called me "a bad mixer" as a child.

Back in bed at 4pm for a nap. Up again at 4.10pm, imagining even more dastardly methods by which I could exterminate the childer-beasts in my estate. We were never that loud when we were small. Barney has a lot to answer for. Drawing his dinosaur distinction between indoor and outdoor voices.

I can’t even class this as a hangover. To do so would be a gross insult to alcohol and would require the invention of a new category of drinker, further down the scale from the much-maligned ‘lightweight’.

Maybe they’d call it a hangunder.

Maybe they’d just call it pathetic.