The Best Places I’ve Woken Up

Sep. 19, 2011

By Dan Hoopes info

His poetry has been featured at 3:AM Magazine.

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Lacking a certain degree of consciousness when choosing potential sleeping locations is a great way to save an otherwise normal night of self-destructive intoxication from becoming just another blacked-out waste of a story. Nobody really cares how trashed you were last night but it may be interesting to know where it took you. What follows is a list of places that I have found myself inexplicably after particular bouts of unapologetic substance abuse.

My Car

Went to a party in my old college town. Woke up in my car next to a slice of pizza.

Grade: B+.  Avoided drunk driving, was decently comfortable and ready to leave as soon as I woke up.

A Backyard, Somewhere

May have been at a stranger’s party, far away from home. Excessive intoxication led to tactical retreat from party, sought out a secluded and quiet place to lay down and vomit. Woke up in somebody’s flower garden thanking Christ it was still four in the morning and nobody had seen me.

Grade: D. Trespassed, ruined daffodils, incurred obscene taxi fare getting home.

Girl’s Bathroom, College Dorm

Conveniently located on my side of the dorm, across the hallway, the girl’s room was like a blacked-out temple of solitude. I can’t really count how many times mostly confused, startled, sometimes angry girls would knock on the door of the stall I had passed out in to ask if everything was all right.

Grade: C. Almost got written up by the R.A., but got to know the girls on my floor pretty well in my more vulnerable moments.

Pumpkin Patch

This kid I know really lives out in the sticks, hence his proximity to pumpkin cultivation and the subsequent patch of gnarled vines and mud that became an impromptu resting place for my weary self.

Grade: A-.  I got a free pumpkin.

My Porch

Sat down for end of the night smoke, never got back up.

Grade: A. Woke up, saw I was on my porch, promptly resumed a proud and satisfied sleep.

A Bus, Rutgers University

The endless loop across the river between campuses. The mobile drunk-tank. Woke up not knowing where I was going or how I got there.

Grade: B. Soothing, like falling asleep on long car rides as a kid. I didn’t even need to take the bus home; I was taking the bus home.

The Englischer Garten, Munich.

In what is basically Munich’s ‘Central Park,’ woke up alone, freezing cold, next to half-empty liter glass of beer, surrounded by a flock of sheep. Apparently they graze livestock on public land in Germany because there were sheep everywhere.

Grade: C-. There were sheep everywhere.

My Bed

A small victory – waking up in my own bed, in my own warm room. No trek home, no hard questions. Well, just the usual hard questions.

Grade: A+. Always the most spectacular and mysterious thing of all, to end up so easily in the one place we’re actually looking for. TC mark

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image – Bigaila

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  • Anonymous

    ex’s bed.

  • CarmenOhio

    A ditch past city lines after a bonfire escape gone horribly wrong.  A random couch on a porch, shirtless.  That was a brand new f’ing shirt!  Amazingly still had my wallet, though.

    • http://twitter.com/mung_beans Mung Beans

      omg, four years on I’m still mourning the new jacket I wore out on my 21st birthday, shit that fucker was expensive and looked awesome

    • Anonymous

      ‘a ditch past city lines after a bonfire escape gone horribly wrong’ > anything on my list

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1363230138 Michael Koh

    a concert

  • http://www.nosexcity.com NoSexCity

    I fear what “The Worst” list would look like. Also praying that post goes live in the next day or two.

    • Anonymous

      seems like this might be a damaging move, personally. i should have adopted a pseudonym a long time ago

      • http://www.nosexcity.com NoSexCity

        We all know I have mad love for the pseudonym… bit late for you now, though.

  • Asdf

    In a stranger’s ass.

  • SortOfObvious

    Sounds like we’ve got a powerful case of alcoholism here…

    • Anonymous

      just your average case of ‘college’

  • http://twitter.com/WTHKristinity K

    I love the pumpkin and the sheep experience! But nothing beats the slice of pizza on the car. Nothing.

  • http://www.twitter.com/mexifrida Frida

    need to try some of these.

  • Bjork Baby

    In a plastic playground tunnel tube, village in the middle of nowhere, France.

  • jj

    Good ones. Me? Hmmm.. floor of a comic/anime shop. Tunnel made of trees. Conference room in convention center, spread across 3 folding chairs.

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1781767179 Merrick Johnson

    on the kitchen floor of an empty house where the stove should be, covered with sleeping bags and a lion king blanket. 

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Riot-Draconis/100001401021028 Riot Draconis

    Waking up on a complete strangers yacht. apparently trying to get to their fully stocked bar through their locked sliding glass doors. Some dock on the lower west side of Manhattan, ny

  • http://twitter.com/xLaurenLaughlin Lauren Hansen

    My best was in the middle of a hardwood floor with a Pomeranian dog under my arm and a Persian cat on my chest.

  • Mooninbluewater

    With drinking behavior like this, it is inevitable you will wake up 6 feet underground in the not-to-distant future. Darwin wins again!

  • Suburbanmisfits

    as a Rutgers student myself i have to say experiences like this are quite normal and not excessive at all. back in my sophomore year a friend of mine went shot for shot with the goose and topped it off with a shot of everclear before we went to that infamous Louisville game. after even more drinking and losing each other twice in the stadium I ‘woke up’ out of my blackout and my friend swore we took the bus over when in fact we drove. It took me 3 hours to find my car. Oh, memories…

  • Suburbanmisfits

    as a Rutgers student myself i have to say experiences like this are quite normal and not excessive at all. back in my sophomore year a friend of mine went shot for shot with the goose and topped it off with a shot of everclear before we went to that infamous Louisville game. after even more drinking and losing each other twice in the stadium I ‘woke up’ out of my blackout and my friend swore we took the bus over when in fact we drove. It took me 3 hours to find my car. Oh, memories…

  • http://www.facebook.com/george.skelton George E Skelton

    Is that our kid again?

  • http://www.facebook.com/george.skelton George E Skelton

    on a mortuary slab after being told I had a great future!

  • http://www.facebook.com/george.skelton George E Skelton

    On a mortuary slab after being told I had a great future!

  • http://www.facebook.com/george.skelton George E Skelton

    Correction.  There are only three horsemen of the Apocalypse

  • Heather

    on a pool table, last thing i remembered was a lap dance from a guy in a dress (I’m a girl). In my best friends bed- her on one side of me and her boyfriend on the other.

  • Anonymous

    once i woke up in a “pay by the hour” motel in the bronx. we woke up because the woman was banging on the door because our time was up. there were mirrors on the ceilings and red fluorescent lights and it smelled like weed. and i was accompanied by my dear friend and her cop boyfriend. then i had to go to work still drunk and vomity

    • Anonymous

      #class

  • Mel

    I once woke up in an easy chair in the living room of a girl I was seeing, wearing her mother’s pajamas. This was AFTER I went to sleep in an entirely different home. She knew nothing…

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Christopher-Eckert/1051946722 Christopher Eckert

    Alcohol might not be the right answer, but it sure the fuck makes you forget the question.

  • http://www.bappydood.com/en/ Miss Lego

    What a crazy post, but I guess it is all possible, hehe

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