This is a long one. My apologies.

A while ago Ben at No Ordinary Rollercoaster presented a challenge to post a story behind our best hangover ever. It’s taken me a week or so to post mine because I had a really hard time identifying my worst hangover ever. Let’s just say that when I reached the age of twenty one (yes, I waited til I was of legal age) I kinda went crazy. I kept rifling through all those college hangovers, but none of them really stood out as special.

Then the other day as I was driving the song “Dancing Nancies” came on the radio and triggered a memory that I had completely blocked for reasons you will soon understand – memories of a drunken night that I am going to share with you.

Soooo…here’s my story so other’s can learn from my mistakes…or really my series of bad decisions. At the last minute one weekend two summers ago a couple friends and I decided to get tickets off craigslist and head over to the Dave Matthews Band at the Gorge.

I woke up early the day of the concert, packed my stuff, and we headed out for the three hour drive to the Gorge. The second we got there the three of us immediately started downing forties we had bought at the gas station down the street. We were what you might call “Classy” with a capital C.

We quickly made friends with the cute guys at the campsite next to us who offered convinced Kathleen and I to do tequila shots with them. Me doing tequila shots = worst idea EVAH. I repeat: Worst Idea Ever. It’s safe to say that Kathleen and I were drunk before we even got to the concert and as Ross drove us there we played “Dancing Nancies” on repeat and sang at the top of our lungs. It blows me away to this day that the cops routinely pulling cars over outside the concert didn’t pull us over, but that’s where my luck ended.

Take a wild guess as to the first thing we did when we got in to the concert? You guessed it! We bought ourselves some beer and since we are s-m-a-r-t we each bought two forties of Coors light. Have I told you yet that I am as classy as they come?

Once we found our seat I immediately had to go to the bathroom so I grabbed my purse and stumbled down to the port-a-potties, which already had a ridiculously long line. So long, in fact, that by the time I finally relieved myself and struggled to button my pants it was dark out and I could not find Ross or Kathleen anywhere.

Drunk Megan started panicking. I whipped out my cell phone and started calling Ross (Kathleen didn’t bring her cell) approximately every minute and leaving crazy messages that ranged from yelling, “Pick up your GD phone you Douchebag! Why the fuck did you ditch me?!” to me whimpering, “I don’t know what to do. This is horrible. Please please please pick up your phone and tell me where you are.”

I also called people in other states to ask them what I should do. Unfortunately, I was completely unintelligible and they would eventually hang up out of frustration. Finally I gave up, sat down by myself, and went to put my phone in my purse…which had mysteriously disappeared. Oh yeah, oopsies, I left my purse in the port-a-potty.

Of course at this point I decided a safe place to set my phone while I dejectedly tried to come up with a game plan was on the ground next to me, which of course resulted in somebody stepping on it, successfully smashing it into a hundred little pieces.

At this point I started crying, which I’m sure was quite awkward for those sitting around me. I really don’t remember the rest of the night very well, but I think some people attempted to comfort me. Towards the end of the night as I was asking a security guard for help, amazingly, another security guard walked up saying somebody had turned in a lost purse and it was MINE! Not only was it mine, but nothing had been taken out of it. HOLY SHIT!

With my luck looking up I thought I would definitely be able to spot Ross because he’s really tall and ridiculously skinny, but….I didn’t. The only thing left to do was to start wandering the huge field that is a parking lot looking for a car that when we had parked while I had been waaaayyy too drunk to remember where and, shocker, I didn’t find it.

But I did find a group of people going to the same campsite who said they would drive me, but only if I got in a drinking contest with the big guy in the group. Seemed like a good deal to me so I chugged two forties and they deemed me worthy of giving a ride.

So miracle of miracles I made it back to the tent only to find Ross and Kathleen passed out inside and decided the right thing to do was to wake up the campsite by screaming, “Good news! I’m ALIVE! Didn’t you wonder where I was? But, WOOHOO, I wasn’t GANGRAPED. Jesus, I can’t believe you ditched me you fuckers.” Really, one of my classier moments.

I quickly climbed into my sleeping bag cursing the whole time and then quickly climbed out to go outside and vomit everywhere. Repeated that about five more times and the next morning when we went to breakfast I don’t think I left the bathroom once.

So I learned my lesson. Hopefully, you can learn from me: when going to a concert it’s probably not a good idea to overdo it on the forties and tequila shots, don’t wander off without leaving a trail of bread crumbs, and don’t hitchhike in the middle of nowhere with a bunch of strangers who “force” you into a drinking contest with a guy approximately the size of Warren Sapp.

Oh, and about a week later, an ex, also named Ross, who happened to be part of Seattle’s improv comedy club called to make sure I was ok because I had left some crazy messages on his phone and he hoped I didn’t mind, but he had played them for his cast mates and they had thought it was so funny they had provided some inspiration for a skit that they performed that same night that was a big hit. So something good came out of it.

Don't be a Jonze