Friends Don't Let Friends Cook Drunk

Those of you with RSS readers, or with so much time on your hands that you're always hitting "refresh" on this site, might already have seen this headline.  I accidentally managed to send a mangled, incomplete version of this post last night, which I'll blame on the Lunesta.

It's probably a bit ironic, then, because the story I had intended to tell was a cautionary tale about why another harmful chemical, vodka, should be outlawed.

Or, at least, the too-yummy vodka at my favorite new Manhattan gay bar, Vlada.

Hubbie and I met up there with a number of friends after dinner and proceeded to take a tour through their home-brewed infused vodkas.  Among those I can recommend personally: cranberry, pineapple, peach, apple-cinnamon, and ginger.  I am sure there were others too, but for some odd reason, they're not coming to me at the moment.

After a few more hours and another stop on the way home, something gooey and fattening was sounding very good to us.  We're in a bit of a mac-n-cheese rut these days, so we decided to pull out all the stops: a box of Kraft Deluxe Macaroni and Cheese.

A little after 3 a.m., I brought some water to a boil, then threw the noodles into the pot.  I carefully set the timer for 10 minutes.

We parked it in front of the TV.  But unfortunately, we were on The Cloud.  You see, The Cloud has this strange, deeply narcotic effect whenever you lie down on it.  No matter how alert you might be, it has the power to drag your body effortlessly off to sleep.

Knowing this, Hubbie prodded me a couple of times and asked if I had set the timer.  Of course I had.  I'm not all irresponsible-like.

About an hour later, we awoke to the shrill squeal of the smoke detector.  I leapt from the sofa to the kitchen in a single bound.  The water had completely evaporated from the pot, leaving a half-scorched, congealed mass of macaroni behind, belching putrid smoke.

I hit the reset button on the smoke alarm and took the pot from the burner.  Eh, it didn't look all that bad.  Besides, when I eat lasagna, I love the crusty, overcooked corner pieces best.  I drunkenly devoured my half; Hubbie politely declined.

* * *

Yesterday we were lolling in bed into the early afternoon when I heard what I could have sworn was the beeping of the timer on the stove.  I went to the kitchen to investigate.  Sure enough, the timer had gone off and now displayed "END" on its LCD screen.

I did some quick math in my head.  The 10 minutes that I had so carefully entered into the timer the night before had actually been 10 hours.  Maybe I thought I was cooking mac-n-cheese the Crockpot way?

Beware, Toby: This could be your life in 12 years!

Comments

[CincyGuy]

Bradford you are a riot! What a hilarious story... my BF and I too passed out after our vodka party in front of the TV but what woke us up was not the smoke detector - it was our dog barking to remind us it was time for a walk!

[blewsdawg]

I had a similar experience years ago w/ Crown Royal. I was awakened by a number of my friends removing my vomit soaked Red Sox jersey.

That jersey never came clean, which was more traumatic for me than the whole passing out and vomiting thing.

[MT]

Here's the random question of the day: How well does Lunesta work? Is it worth asking my doctor about it as a substitute for Ambien?

[Malcontent]

CincyGuy, are you drunk right now? This is not Queerty. :-)

I tend to like Lunesta better than Ambien. It works best if you don't have much food in your stomach. My hubbie and I can sometimes be a little resistant to drugs' effects, so it helps not to eat much beforehand if you know you might need it. If I were a doctor, I'd probably be put in jail for saying this, but a drink or two helps the effects.

There is no real "hangover" to speak of with Lunesta, although it can probably happen from tmie to time. I tend to notice that more with Ambien. The only side effect I've noticde consistently is that it gives you a slight, strange metallic taste in your mouth which lasts until maybe a couple of hours after it wears off, but it's usually good for at least a full seven hours of sleep.

Also, Ambien can knock you out pretty quickly, but it doesn't usually keep you out as long as Lunesta, and in the interim, you might experience some funky hallucinations. Which can be fun, I suppose, as long as you don't react like this guy I dated for a few weeks, who I later found out was a tina-head. Remind me to tell you that one sometime. Ambien CR (controlled release) is better than Ambien in that respect, but I think Lunesta works consistently better than the others.

[blewsdawg]

...Ambien can knock you out pretty quickly, but it doesn't usually keep you out as long as Lunesta, and in the interim, you might experience some funky hallucinations. Which can be fun, I suppose, as long as you don't react like this guy I dated for a few weeks, who I later found out was a tina-head. Remind me to tell you that one sometime.

?!

No, no, no, mister. You teased it, so put out.

[Malcontent]

Eh, OK. Well, I dated this guy -- let's call him "Tim," because that was his name --- for a few weeks.

He was over at my place and was going to sleep over. He said that he had been having trouble sleeping the past few nights. I don't remember if he had something big going on the next day that he needed to be fresh for or what, but I felt kind of bad for him, so I offered him an Ambien.

After about 30 minutes, it started to kick in, as I expected. I've found that it's not uncommon at all to have mild hallucinations, but when I've had them, I always knew they were hallucinations, and they were never so powerful that I lost touch with reality. Really innocuous stuff. And even if you have hallucinations, sleep usually overtakes you anyway.

Well, Tim's body was rebelling against the Ambien, and even worse, he was completely wigging out. He was convinced that other people were in the room with us. At first I thought he was joking, but he was serious. He became more and more frenetic and wilder and wilder in his delusions.

I would open closets and show him that we were the only people in the house, but he wouldn't believe me. Then he started to accuse me of having given him something other than Ambien. I showed him the bottle, showed him the pills inside it with their little "Amb" on them.

But he still didn't believe me. He thought I was trying to harm him.

After about half an hour of this, as he became more and more agitated, he decided to get into a cab and go home. That was about the time I decided that he probably wasn't "the one."

[MT]

I gotta laugh at the hallucinations. I can sympathize with Tim though because I totally bugged out the first time it happened to me. I took an Ambien and didn't fall asleep immediately and all of a sudden I look over and thought my BF was a pulsating monster covered in hair - and I mean serious fur. I started freaking out and all he did was tell me to go to sleep. We were in our house on Fire Island so the story spread the next day before I even got up. It was then that everyone was like 'haven't you heard about the hallucinations?' They even had a name for it: ambien-dreams or something. It was very disturbing while it was happening, but if someone had only warned me it I probably would have just laughed at it. My boyfriend now has the nickname Chewbacca because of that night.

Thanks for the insight though. My main problem with Ambien is not being able to stay asleep longer than four hours when I take it, and Ambien CR was a total let down for me. I will definitely ask about Lunesta.

[Craig Ranapia]

Friends will insist that "friends" (well, a one-night stand if you want to get technical) wear pants when frying bacon. A well-hung, stud cooking breakfast in the nude sounds hot; the sight of him screeching like a little girl when a hot pan spits fat in his crotch kills the mood, and how.

[John in IL]

Drive-thru solves most of these problems. You're not going to remember what you ate anyway so why bother cooking. My stove is for lighting cigarettes.

[North Dallas Thirty]

I agree with John. The most wonderful drunk food on the planet is a bacon, egg, and cheese taquito from Whataburger.

And Craig, for your issue, I have three words. "Microwave", and "paper towels". Cook bacon therein and be treated to spit and sizzle safely contained in the first......freeing you for spit and sizzle elsewhere in the kitchen with your naked friend.

[Craig Ranapia]

NDT:

You've never met my grandmother. In her cosmology microwaves occupy the same circle of Hell as women who smoke in the street, pierced noses, excessive scent and cargo shorts. Convenience is for pussies and speed is vulgar.

[raj]

Moral: don't leave the kitchen when you have stuff on the stove ;-)

[anapestic]

Making macaroni and cheese from a box is a sin. Having to eat it is the punishment.

[Aatom]

1. when are we going to meet up at Vlada, Mal? would love to meet you and i love love love the new space.

2. NDT - I just got back from southern Texas (McAllen) and had my first Whataburger experience. after everything i had heard it wasn't as amazing as I expected, but it was a damn fine burger nonetheless.

3. Mal - your hallucinatory friend had larger problems than Ambien visions, trust me.

[Malcontent]

1) Whenevah. I'm around, except when I am not.

3) Musta been the tina, methinks.

[North Dallas Thirty]

LOL, Craig....trust me, I understand. My grandmother had to be convinced of the rightness and morality of the demon box; of course, once she was, she flipped the other way into a fanatical devotion to the machine that kept it on her countertop for twenty years. I think we finally got rid of it when you no longer needed to turn on the lights in the kitchen at night; everything was bathed in a soft phosphorescent glow.

And Aatom, trust me....damn fine burger when sober, food of the gods when filled with enough boilermakers to make you walk down Cedar Springs Road doing your Anastasia impersonation.

[Aatom]

yikes, NDT.

honestly, the best food I had down there was in Mexico itself. We went across the border and sat at a big taco stand. we had 3 meals consisting of tacos, fajitas, bean soup, 3 types of fresh salsa, a huge baked potato with beef and cheese in it, 3 beers and 1 soda.

for $20. AND some guy wandered by and washed our car for us while we ate. i don't even think he knew it was ours.

Viva Mexico!

[North Dallas Thirty]

I hope you didn't end up with a case of Montezuma's revenge for the after-dinner.

[mbts on sale]

True to size. Back strap is fairly adjustable. The shoes are more streamlined and less clunky than other MBT's that I've owned and so seem to go with more things. They feel good. I quite like them!