The list has come about as a response to an SOS call I sent to a friend earlier this year, and now holds a Commandments like status in mine and said friend’s life. It’s not pretty, or particularly clever, but it does the trick most of the time.
It all started on an early afternoon in March this year. Yet another lockdown was easing, and my friend, let’s call him Vladimir, cracked a rib falling over on a cold UK beach, in an attempt to save a starfish. Despite the ignominious circumstances at the time of Vladimir’s fall, he swears he was very much sober. I, on the other hand, was having a casual glass of wine with my Russian father in honour of Mother’s Day. By 5.30 pm I had smoked 10 cigarettes and drank 3 ‘Papa D’ measured glasses of red wine. That’s to say my dad doesn’t believe in any sort of measurement, and a glass of wine poured by him is generally filled to the very brim.
By 10 pm I was starting to fear what the following morning might bring, having not practised the art of long-haul drinking for many a month. Thankfully, at this point, I found out Vladimir was self-medicating his pain with a few packs of Stella (he’s classy like that) and so I was somewhat comforted by the prospect of self-induced headaches in numbers.
The following morning, an inevitable text was sent- “Vladimir, my head hurts and my lungs are unhappy. SOS”
“You know what to do, you know what lays ahead. Get your list and order it. Usually starts with a big poo then in whichever order; paracetamol, water, coffee, shower, comfy clothes, buttery toast / McDonald’s delivery, send kid to school, more paracetamol, plan to move your work to tomorrow/ cancel calls, semi nap, feel guilt, plan KFC delivery, dismiss guilt, heating on, turn down heating, cheeky wank, feel a bit sick, more water, rationed episodes of bad TV, flick through socials, find others with hangover converse with / confess to…”
This is now known as The List. It was born as a one-off support service and developed into the ‘live by or die’ Hangover Gospel according to Vlad and Lina.
To us, it’s become more than just a ‘day after agenda’ or a list of well-known remedies- I mean it’s that too, but more than that- it’s solidarity, it’s a measure of choices one has made the previous night. For example, I can tell how much Vlad drank the night before, depending on where he is on the list circa 10 am or the kind of bad TV he’s watching. A Place In The Sun equals a minimum of 5 Stellas the night before. McDonald’s breakfast delivery before 10 am, equals 3 Carlsberg’s before the workday is done and a couple of bottles of wine with the wife after.
Generally speaking, I am pretty good at handling hangovers. One could say it’s due to far too much practice, but I like to think it’s because I refuse to give into it and carry on about my day, consuming nothing more than coffee and some form of stodgy beige food. That’s true for headache levels 1 through to 8. But every so often I forget myself, miscalculate and acquire level 9-10 hangovers. On those occasions, no list, solidarity, pity or mocking can help.
One such VIP hangover almost killed me a mere two weeks ago and will forever be known as Day Of The Dead. It was the kind of bad where I took a sip of water and threw up immediately; then continued to throw up pretty consistently throughout the day every time I so much as thought about liquids or food. The kind of bad that makes you go on Rightmove looking for houses in the countryside, where nothing is open past Cinderella’s curfew and bad decisions are limited to your own wine cellar. The kind of bad a simple shower required a 25-minute lie-down and cancellation of all weekend plans. My amiga from the previous night’s escapades described it perfectly- “I’d cry if I wasn’t so dehydrated”.
As I write this, Vlad is in some small Somerset town ‘getting away from it all’ for a bit. It’s 4.43 pm and he text to say he found a local pub playing ELO tunes. I better send The List out now as a precaution- I doubt Deliveroo operates in Frome.
Always drink responsibly, innit.
CREATIVE NOTES 