Just one...

Wake up, eyes barely able to open, glaring sun seeping through the window shades, sneaking by each slat, roasting and rousting beet red eyeballs cowering behind eyelids. Fully clothed, shoes on, face-up, present location, a couch, somewhere. Confusion, head pounding, a neanderthal beating on a drum situated two inches off-center from each side of your temple at a marching band tempo. An orchestra of pain wrought throughout your senses. Body checklist: headache, check; the smell of gin, stale beer and traces of Mexican food, check; death-breath, check; thin layer of film encasing every dental anomaly, check; blood shot eyes, absolutely; tortuous stomach knots and mid-region unhappiness, check. Exactly twelve minutes to materialize yourself at your place of employment; general well being, un-check. A Wednesday morning hangover, how did this happen?

Just one beer you told yourself and just one beer you were promised, the beginning of any monumental evening, the infantile stages of a rock-star night and the writing on the wall for a hazy morning, a story only too familiar for some of us. An innocuous evening out, it started with a burger and fries, or maybe down at the pizza joint for a slice of pie, taco Tuesday lying in wait always got me. I can't stay out late, I gotta work in the morning. Wow! They have that on draught, I could have just one with dinner and so it begins. Juxtaposition jumping jacks of choices playing hopscotch with my mind; which one should I have, they all sound great I guess one of each will have to do. Three hours later; politics, the internet, social science experiments, climate change, sex, drugs, rolling and rocking and unadulterated people watching. The seed has been planted, fuel, soil, and the sky above to grow, let the night sow.