Mother's Day

My mom is coming to visit for the weekend.

It's been a long time coming; I've been away at college for just a shade under a year now, so it makes plenty of sense that she'd want to come and see where all that money my grandfather left me is going. Since the weekend coincidentally happens to include Mother's Day, she's bringing Andrew along; it's a hallmark opportunity to spend a weekend with both her boys.

Saturday morning, I somehow manage to pull myself out of bed at 8 to pick them up at the airport, still hung over and dressed accordingly. My mom asks if I brushed my teeth, which is completely pointless; we can both smell what's left of a long night with every word I say. I drive the two around town, showing off all Tucson has to offer. This takes us up until about 1 in the afternoon. We grab lunch at East Coast Super Subs, and excited just to have a free meal, I take advantage and go to town on 18 inches of pure bliss (meatballs, tomatoes, mozzarella... the real deal.)

Given that I strive to be the cooler older brother that does nothing more than drink and screw, I've promised Andrew a party of epic proportions, so I suggest we head back to my place and rest up a little after lunch, which we do.

While my description of our party as "epic" is questionable at best, we're at it by 6 and we've got enough moderately priced alcohol to take down an entire sorority (not that this is saying much--a 30-pack of bitch beer will usually do the trick). We've got a dozen kids on the back patio playing beer pong on our hand-crafted and aptly named "Beer Down" table (the University of Arizona's motto and fight song make use of the phrase “Bear Down,” which, after almost two full semesters, I still do not understand), another handful in our immaculately-clean-solely-for-the-purpose-of-family-visiting living room (foreshadowing), and a few more in the kitchen doing shots.

Seeing her hotel is right off the freeway, which in Tucson (and most anywhere else, I'd assume) equates to dirty and loud, I've volunteered my room to my mom. I hardly feel it courteous to subject her to that mess. Never much of a drinker (even in college), she calls it a night by 9 and shuts my door.

I take my eighteen-year-old protégé-for-the-evening outside for a pep talk of sorts, in which I explain in brief, broken English the rules of beer pong, placing the utmost emphasis on the consumption of alcohol and the ut-least emphasis on rules. What starts out as a few friendly rounds evolves into in a complete forgoing of the athletics on my behalf, as I take to sitting in a foldable nylon chair best suited for corpulent white trash ass at a golf tournament and drowning my insides in Keystone Light.

Over the next two-to-four hours (several years removed from these events, this is still open to interpretation), I shift from beer to other endeavors, namely amaretto bombs. These taste surprisingly similar to Dr. Pepper (even more so than Diet Dr. Pepper!), and they go down just as easy. Normally, this sort of thing wouldn't pose any problem whatsoever for me, and it doesn't tonight, which seems to be the problem in itself. As the night unfolds, I fail to notice that while my brother and my friends Oliver and Eric are each taking turns racing me, I'm motoring through one sweet bomb after another. Before long, I'm riding Eric's wheelchair (with him in it, coincidentally) down our barely-wide-enough hallway and into my own room, where my mother is shockingly still up and reading. She brushes this off with a motherly shrug and sends us on our merry way, so I wheel us over to the living room. After all, boys will be boys.

I get off Eric's chair (and his lap) and sit down to make incomprehensible small talk with our friend Sara, who is currently in the early stages of what will end up being a multiple-year stint as my best friend Josh's object of affection. Unfortunately for the sake of the story (yet I suppose fortunately for my drunk ass), Josh is back home in Santa Monica for the weekend and doesn't get bask in this glory.

[Interesting side note: roughly 15 months later while drinking my way through yet another game of "never have I ever" with both Josh and Sara, I'll learn for the first time that I've stuck my tongue in Sara's mouth, which, surely enough, took place on aforementioned evening. In addition to this being news to me, the same can be said for Josh (and mildly disturbing news, at that). This is easily one of the three most uncomfortable moments since we've known each other... and we've hooked up (with different people) in the same room.]

Some hours later, I'm passed out on the couch in the living room as the party lives on around me. In vintage collegiate fashion (whatever the fuck that means), Eric decides (and justifiably so) to have a laugh by writing on my leg with a Sharpie. [Another side note: I only say "justifiably so" because during the prior week and under similar circumstances, I had passed out, piss drunk, in my bedroom with the door open. An hour or two later, I woke up, still sauced, sauntered into the bathroom, and realized what must have been fifty percent of my visible skin was covered in cartoon genitals, signatures, and improvised Chinese characters. From what I've been told, I stormed into the living room, where people were still drinking, shouted "look what the fucking cats did to me!" and went back to sleep.]

As Eric starts to scribble his name and what later appears to be half a Star of David along my calf, I jerk awake, and before I even have the chance to determine whether or not this is in fact our cat, I turn my head and projectile vomit all over the place. Now I usually try to abstain from using such generalities as "all over the place," but this occasion merits my diction, as I upchuck what feels like a good gallon or two of the most radiant red (presumably an intestinal concoction of tomato, meatballs and amaretto) I've ever seen upon our living room floor, our coffee table, our couch, myself, my clothes, and I'm pretty sure there is some airborne mixture that reaches the wall. In addition to this being the first time in my life (I believe) I've thrown up from the excessive consumption of alcohol, I also learn that I'm "a yeller" in doing so, which means exactly what you think.

The next morning, I wake up at 6. Piece by piece, I arrive at the following conclusions:

1) We need new blinds, because our current ones can't keep sunlight out for shit (otherwise, I might have been able to sleep past noon and ride out my pending hangover, which I've grown accustomed to on Sundays like football in the fall, or church, if I'd ever had to go).

2) I did puke last night; it's caked on our leather couch and I can taste it on the back of my teeth. Ain't that some shit.

3) Somehow, our living room is spotless, or at least close. Either way, no vomit, no beer cans, no liquor bottles. I immediately realize there was only one person sober enough (or at all, for that matter) last night to take care of it.

I struggle to sit up and rub my aching face. I've got four voicemails and a couple text messages, all of which will inevitably shed a little light or provide insight on a common subject that I can hardly remember. The first one is an excited and practically—no, shouting Josh: "Dude, Oliver just called! He said you th--" I hang up. My stomach starts to turn and I run to hug the toilet once more. (See? At least I cuddle the morning after.)


Some hours later we're celebrating Mother's Day in the equivalent of a less extravagant Coco's in a strip mall at the corner of Grant and Euclid. I can barely sit up in the booth, and there's a singing clown who's got to be damn near 70 working his way around the restaurant, making balloon animals. Andrew can't keep a straight face and my mom stares at me like we've never met. With what I can't tell is either disappointment or maternal affection, she reminds the both of us (me) how fortunate we are to have a mother who will clean up vomit. I silently note that of the 21 Mother's Days I've been a part of, this is by far the most memorable.

Love you, Mom.


(written in 2007.)