It’s Sunday- maybe it’s 10 am if you’re sane, but maybe it’s 6 am if you have crippling anxiety like me- regardless: you’ve awoken. Your heart rate begins to pick up, you have a weird half sweat going on, and the sliver of light coming in from your bedroom window feels like a someone took a steak knife to your frontal lobe. You squint to realize your phone is dead (and right next to an available charger) and your Nars Laguna bronzer is now caked into your crisp white sheets AGAIN *sigh*. If being drunk enough to not plug your phone in or take your makeup off isn’t bad enough, the hangxiety (hungover anxiety, I know, clever right?) begins to quickly set in DEEP.
Your shaky hands fumble the plug into your phone, and you lay with your eyes closed once again to contemplate your existence and figure out how the fuck you got home last night. Suddenly you’re snapped into consciousness by the sound of the “schhhping!” alerting you that your phone has finally been resuscitated to life.
First thing’s first, you head to Snapchat to delete the 57-minute cinematic masterpiece you’ve added to not only your public but also your private story. While you’re deleting, you notice out of the 257 people who have already viewed it, the top name happens to be the guy you’ve been seeing so you instantly etch his existence out of your mind considering you will most definitely not be hearing from him again. Next, you head to your recents page and see about 30 unopened purple triangles which either means you leaked your own sex tape or, yet another 5-minute Uber karaoke session was sent to your entire sorority and every frat boy you’ve ever made out with.
You decide to stay off snap until at least 3pm.
Jesus Christ- 83 texts. You begin to sort through your three group chats and attempt to decode the various “Wher u?” “Up sTaIrZ” “oMg Did yoi seee who9s her4 hhahaufhhhaha” texts from last night’s adventures. A feeling of panic takes over your body because once you’ve cleared all the chats there are still 3 unread messages. You’re just about to jump off your parent’s balcony when you realize you texted not only your ex-boyfriend, the guy you used to hook up with in high school and for the love of God, you even texted the guy you’ve been seeing. Luckily for you (sarcasm), they’ve each responded confused as hell. You re-read what you’ve sent to each of them and realize that speaking in cursive is a talent of yours and although YOU can definitely decode that you’re trying to ask “Want to come over?” you just text back “Wrong number!!” and hope they don’t think too much of it.
You decide to put your phone on DnD until at LEAST dinner time.
Amongst the chaotic mess that is your social media/digital life- you realize that your pounding headache has begun to make you nauseous. You put your phone down and lay back down only to realize you’re not only in the bodysuit you wore last night but also the same skirt (Jesus I wonder how many times my ass was out last night?). Soon enough you begin to make promises to God that you’ll never drink another Gin and Tonic again if it meant this pain (emotionally and physically) would go the fuck away. After an hour and a half of this internal bargaining with the man upstairs, you bring yourself to get out of bed (physically not mentally). Completely off balance, you use your vanity and a few dressers to make way to your bedroom door. The bathroom seems a fucking light year away but somehow by the grace of God, you make it and soon enough taste (and see lol) every wrong decision you threw back last night. The smell of Tequila floods your bathroom and you can’t tell if it’s the violent amount of liquid you just yacked up or if the alcohol has already begun to seep from your pores.
30 minutes (maybe an hour) later you open your eyes to realize that you’re literally a bag of fucking garbage considering you actually fell back asleep on your bathroom rug. The sleep must have helped because your headache seems to have subsided hence, the nausea has also taken a break. At last, you decide to actually be responsible for the first time in 15 hours and take an Advil. At this point, the rest of your crew must have begun to awaken because your phone is beginning to buzz again in the other room. You head to your phone and take note that the members of your group chat are once again speaking in complete sentences. “I want to fucking die”, “I texted Brandon last night” “Dude can someone come pick me up?” “Who wants to get McDonald’s?” etc… You ignore all texts except McDonald’s because you realize at this moment the only thing that matters is getting your filthy paws to grip around a large coke from McDonald’s like right the fuck now.
Also, though… that fucking SUCKS she texted Brandon again, his girlfriend is def gonna beat her ass now.
You brush your fucking teeth, so you don’t kill your friends and grab the first t-shirt and pair of shorts you see on your floor. Your friend’s text you “here” and you head outside to see that the rest of your squad also looks like they just crawled out of the deep pits of hell. Before McDonald’s, you have to be a good friend and go pay a proper congratulations to the only one who got ass last night by picking your friend up from her side hoe’s house. She stumbles out of his front door, looking literally disgusting in a questionable XL Sigma Chi t-shirt, a pair of sketchy ass basketball shorts, and carrying her heels from yesterday. You and your friend’s all cheer at her accomplishment of the weekend and pray to god the rest of this man’s neighbors see her tiptoeing outside in bare feet.
McDonald’s at this point in the day is occupied by America’s finest: those who are hungover, and those who have no caloric morals. You order a FAT ass coke from the menu but that’s it because even though you are a literal piece of garbage, you aren’t going to fill your body with more, considering you just puked up half the bar menu from last night. Once the hangover crew has been assembled you head to your house to sit on the floor and fill the living room with the scent of grease, stale liquor, and tears of regret.
You ask every person in the room every 15 minutes if they’re mad at you or if anyone else you were with last night is pissed either. You go through your camera rolls and send each other the blurry pictures you took with the DJ last night and the few nudes you took in the bathroom lmfao. Eventually, someone pukes up their McDonald’s, and everyone decides its actually time to join the living once again. Your friend’s leave and you decide to pop another Advil for good measure and consume real food. Here’s where my advice comes in…finally…lmao.
When you’re hungover and you’re over the age of 21 literally the WORST thing you can do is fill your body with grease. Like actually grow up. It sounds like the worst idea ever but if you actually eat something semi-healthy: eggs & whole-grain toast, a protein shake, oatmeal, etc. instead of a McChicken and a large fry, I seriously promise you, your body will thank you. Along with whatever your first meal of the day is you should also mix in the sacred liquid…. Water. After you’ve eaten and consumed at least 50 oz of water, please shower.
Your skin at this point is legit SCREAMING of dehydration and needs you to get a washcloth up in that business STAT. Shower. Wash the smell of smoke and bar food out of your hair, wash legit every orifice of your body with some sort of exfoliant, and legit just let the hot water open up your pores so they can cry out for mercy (maybe you can cry too you fucking sloppapottomus). After you’ve showered, done your skincare, applied lotion, brushed your hair, and then also brushed your teeth for the 304928 time today, it’s time to recollect your life.
At this point- clean your room and make your bed even if you plan on laying on it all day- your hangxiety will thank you while you’re in a vegetative state surrounded by cleanliness. Cleaning your room also gives you a great excuse to not open the replies to your American Idol audition you sent to your followers on Snapchat last night. Pick up your rejected clothes from your outfit roulette last night, put your clothes from last night in a toxic waste container- I mean… your hamper… And put all your makeup back in your drawer, or your bag, or wherever you keep that shit. Once all this is done, my favorite thing to do is light the same exact candle I light every Sunday, so the smell brings back the painful hangover feelings from the weekend before and I get to decide which weekend I made more of a fool of myself during.
At last, life is in order. You locate your Roku remote, put on the Sex & the City movie for the 546459th time, replay at least three embarrassing conversations over in your head from last night, and you text your friend’s one last time to make sure they aren’t mad at you. All isn’t right in the world, but it’s getting there, and now it’s time to take a life-changing nap for the next four hours.
Ahh… we’re getting WAYY too fucking old for this.
xoxo,
Carlie Bradshaw
Sex & The Suburbs 