I rarely get hangovers.

But this isn't a story about not getting hungover.

And I rarely drink so much that after I've finished being drunk, I can't remember large chunks of the drinking.

But it would appear that that does have something to do with this story.

D-Missus and I went to a company function on the weekend.

What I thought happened was, we went for lovely meal and a couple of social drinks, told a few entertaining anecdotes, danced a few salsas and then said goodnight, tipping my top hat, and slipping the door man a fiver on the way out.

But what it seems may have happened – after hearing many “Did you remember doing that…” and “I can't believe you did that…” stories at work today … and viewing a couple of dozen photos and some mpegs – was that D-Missus and I arrived to the function already drunk, and got somewhat drunkerer after that.

We got a nice hotel room for the night, which was conveniently located just across the carpark from where the event was taking place. We both celebrated buying a house (and buying a night's freedom from the kids) with a pre-drinks bottle of Champagne in our hotel room. Etc.
Then we got to the event and were pleasantly surprised to discover that the company did something new, which involved handing out a free glass of Champagne to everyone as they arrived.

We discovered that by sculling our flutes back, we could each get four glasses down before the free bubbles ran out. But it got better because everyone seemed to want to buy me a beer.

Actually, it's still a bit blurry from this point on. That wasn't helped by the fact that at some point someone thought it was a good idea to do some Tequila slammers. But the bar didn't have any shot glasses (WHAT?), and then I asked for a few of their smallest glasses to act as shot glasses … which turned out to be whisky tumblers … which someone then thought would be a good idea to fill all the way up with whisky … and then … it's a bit blurry from this point on… but I think I had five glasses of whisky. I think I sculled them back, because D-Missus – a woman who is normally drunk after just two glasses of wine – sculled two whiskies back, (Holy Fuck!) and I had to follow suit, because it would be bad form otherwise.

Then I remembered that I had brought a hipflask of whisky.

Ugh.

There is now a four minute video on the company network of me passing this hipflask around to everyone at our table (while dancing in my chair), before we then did some hard drugs, which involved sucking the helium out of balloons and then talking funny.

I remember running up to the dance floor with a work friend when a Guns n' Roses song came on, and yelling how we were going to “show all these mother fuckers how to really dance!”, and the proceeded to jump up and down and headbang and make the Devil's Horns hand symbol, before breaking into some pretty intense airguitar solos.

I just had a flashback of all this happening in front of the company's Managing Director, who was trying to dance with his wife.

I hope that doesn't turn out to be a career-limiting dance move…

My wife also somehow managed to accidentally ankle tap my old boss on the dance floor, a move which left my old boss with a sprained ankle, and her ass on the floor and her dress over her head.

There must have been a discussion at some point about swinging, because a new manager came up to me with a bowl with a couple of car keys in it. I picked one. It was his wife's. I asked who the other set belonged to. It was his spare set.
His wife was cute, though. And they were staying at the same hotel as us…

I remember it was near the end of the night and no one was dancing so I somehow ended up going to the dance floor with the husband of one of my colleagues. We figured that, hey, we were cool. If we went up, then everyone would follow and join us.

We were wrong.
So we did whatever anyone does when the last song comes on and it turns out to be a waltz.

I led.

Well, he was wearing a pink shirt.

It was almost time to leave, when another husband of another colleague became convinced that he was the Ultimate Warrior and wanted to play Superstars of Wrestling. He announced his challenge by pulling me off my chair. Which then sparked a goodhearted wrestling riot, which ended in security asking us to leave. Or telling us to leave. I don't really remember. But the word “leave” was definitely used.

Somehow I left with a baby bottle of Champagne, which I did not pay for, tucked under my jacket,

D-Missus sculled it back in the elevator, while I fought off a guy who wanted to steal two balloons I had acquired for my daughters, in order to suck out their helium and talk funny.

During the short walk to the hotel, D-Missus managed to stumble into a garden and fall down in the wet dirt.

I don't know how we made it to our room.

I remember taking turns throwing up in the toilet and then laying on the bed wondering whether I still had my jacket, those helium balloons, or even my pants… and then blurting out a “hey, weren't we meant to swing with those guys?” before passing out.