My Buddy, My Buddy, My Buddy and Me!

I can’t believe New Year’s Eve is barreling down upon us already. So much has happened in 2009, it’s hard for me to put it into words.

And I don’t plan to. Simple as that. You all know what happened in 2009. I’m 97% sure you were also there. So what can I do for you to close out your 2009 since I’m not humorously wrapping up the year? Probably nothing. New Years, like Halloween, is one of those holidays with a disproportionate fun to planning ratio. [Editor's Note: I (Meg) could not disagree with this statement more if I were being paid to. The traumatic heinousness that is New Year's Eve has absolutely nothing to do with the majesty of Halloween. Chris has meth psychosis. That is all.] It’s like the more work you put into planning your night, the less fun you’re going to have. In short, we should all stay home with our cats, read a book, maybe play some Sudoku, and drink tea to celebrate. But you and I both know that’s not going to happen.

As is tradition for me, I plan to black out around 11:59, just seconds before the ball drops. Then pretend to have known where I was when Baby New Year came kicking and screaming into our lives (answer: at the bar getting drink number 972 billion of the night, drunk texting the world some illegible variation of “Happy New Year”). The best part of this tradition is definitely the morning after because the calibre of my misadventures increases significantly on New Years Eve. New Year’s Day is like a scavenger hunt, where I spend all day going from one person to the next finding clues as to what I did the night before. I like to think of it as Supermarket Sweep, except instead of finding riddles about Philadelphia cream cheese in the bread aisle, I’m finding fragments of my shame in the gutters of New York City.

One particularly poignant New Years Eve was spent with our dear Meg McBlogger. To ring in 2008, we met up with Meg’s friend at a bar on the Upper West Side. The price was right and it was a solid plan, so I was 100% down. Cut to NYE circa 10:30, when we trek out from the depths of Brooklyn, to what ends up being borderline Harlem. No worries though because we both were looking good, feeling good, ready to close this year out with style.

Well. Ladies and gentlemen, I was a wittle hasty with my drink, and my memory from this night abruptly ends approximately after saying hello to Meg’s friend. That does not, however, mean that my night ended. Noooooo, far from it. I have this irritating (or amazing) ability to function LONG after my brain shuts down. I only found out about what I did the next day, after waking up on top of my covers in my clothes from the night before.

What I found out is this: I proceeded to THOROUGHLY liquor myself up as the night wore on, which led me to make out with everyone in the bar when the ball dropped. When that party winded down, Meg, her friend, and I decided to hit up a party in Brooklyn. As soon as I exited the cab, I promptly vomited all over the entire borough. Meg, being the saint that she is, realized my level of intoxication, and attempted to flag a cab down to take us home. Being that we lived just north of Satan’s asshole, no cab would take us, until Meg showed a little leg and a lot of chest to some gypsy cab driver. Unfortunately for her, I turned into what she calls “Legs”, meaning my drunk legs kicked in, and I had ambled away somewhere. That somewhere happened to be passed out standing up leaning against the corner between two buildings. Safe. After much cajoling, convincing me a brick wall is not a good sleeping surface, we get into the cab and home safely. SCENE. For me, the retelling of this story is infinitely more fun than actually experiencing it. I’m sure my drunk mind was just picturing a monkey in a top hat riding a unicycle all night.

So what am I trying to get across with this story? Obviously I’m not trying to lead by example. If that were the case, we’d have a situation on our hands. The point is to try and have fun on the night of New Year’s, and you can’t do that when you’re blackout drunk. What if you meet the most amazing guy/girl and have the best sex, but you don’t remember it when you wake up because after you were finished, you wandered away?

This is why I propose the New Year’s Eve buddy system. It’s like a middle school field trip, but with less learning, more adult beverages, and equal amounts of awkward. Naturally, unless you are a lone wolf, you’ll be going out on the town with at least one friend on NYE. Great, now you have your buddy. And what you and your buddy are going to do is, well, everything together. You should be able to scream “BUDDY CHECK!” at any point during the night and get some sort of response from your buddy. A head nod, a wave, the middle finger. Any reaction will suffice. Another beer? BUDDY CHECK! If you’re buddy acknowledges you, then you’re good to go. It’s flawless.

This can also work to prevent some terrible life choices from being made. If you see your friend typing furiously on his/her cell phone all night, you can yell BUDDY CHECK and cockblock that booty text message to the ex at 1 AM. See your friend heading out the door with a fuggo? BUDDY CHECK and you make some excuse to nip that prescription for Valtrex in the bud.

Let’s say you do happen to meet that dream guy/girl and you want to have that amazing sex that you won’t remember. You and your buddy call your final check so you can talk it out. If your buddy approves (after all, two pairs of beer goggles are better than one, right?) then off you go into the wild, wild world.

It’s a win-win situation to me. I know that I would still be asleep in an alleyway in Brooklyn if it weren’t for Meg. Without a buddy, that could be you. And we wouldn’t want you to start out the New Year in a ditch.

In conclusion, I hope that each and every one of you has a great New Year and you all get laid and get drunk and be merry and all your wildest dreams come true. Thanks for reading and I love you all and I’ll see you in 2010!