Free Falling

I was quite the lush back in my early 20's, as I'm sure has been realized if you've read any of my other entries. I was in the volunteer fire department for a short time back then until I moved out of district. If you know anything about volunteer fire departments, especially on Long Island, you know they love to party. Not to mention, they throw some of the best parties ever. The holiday party and the annual installation dinner are the highlights of the year. This story starts at the holiday party one cold December night and ends the next day in the ER, as usual.

The catering hall that we were having our party at was serving the 'mini Buds' instead of the normal 12oz bottles. I think the minis were like 8.5oz or something close to that. I called them beer shots. That night I drank enough of them to build myself a nice 3-D pyramid with the empties. Someone counted around 30, give or take a few. Needless to say, I was pretty inebriated. Also going on at the hall in another room was a sweet 16 party. I convinced a few of the drunk wives to crash the birthday party with me. I walked in, ate some one's food and was video taped wishing the birthday girl a happy sweet 16.

Our party ended and I somehow wound up at the firehouse. Oh no, I take that back. There was an after party at a bar first. My car and car keys were MIA, so like I said, *somehow* I ended up back at the firehouse eventually with a few other guys. I don't remember what we were doing while we were there supposedly sobering up, but I remember a few of us getting in trouble. It might have had something to do with drunk munchies and raiding the walk-in fridge, maybe.

The next thing I know, we're being yelled at by our company lieutenant in his office. The other two guys run out of the room, so I follow them. Lt. is right behind me and all of us are laughing. We run down the office hallways, through the lounge (over the couches), and out into the truck room. Then I follow the morons up the step into the cab of one of the trucks, through it and out the other side. I need to point out quickly that I'm still dressed up from the party. Skirt, high heels, the whole shebang. When I opened up the other door I turned around to see where Lt. was. He wasn't behind me anymore. While I was looking around I jumped down onto the step and went to jump to the floor. Unbeknown to me, the heel of my shoe was stuck in the grate. I dropped 3 feet down to the floor landing directly on my left kneecap and twisted my ankle in the process. Without a blink I got back up laughing harder and ran out back and smoked a cigarette behind the storage building. Not long after the sun started to rise and I really wanted my bed. Like I mentioned before, my car was missing. I called my little sister at 6 or 7 in the morning and begged her to come get me. She picked me up and brought me home and I fell fast asleep in my bed.

My dad woke me up sometime in the afternoon, inquiring the whereabouts of my car. I got up to get my phone and immediately fell to the floor. Confused and thinking I was still drunk, I tried to get up and fell again. I managed to get myself sitting on the edge of my bed and I looked down at my legs. My left knee and ankle looked like the belonged to a 500 pound man. My leg was like 5 times it's normal size. I tried really hard to think about how this had happened. I didn't remember right away that I fell off the fire truck. My dad again asked me not to divulge to the ER staff that I was tanked when I did this. I say "again" because this was not the first or last time I ended a night of drinking, shenanigans and debauchery with a trip to the hospital.

First I have to call around to the other department members to find my car. My ex-boyfriend(who was not my boyfriend at the time) and his sister had taken it to their house when I wasn't paying attention. They were nice enough to bring it over. I get to the ER (BTW, no one in my family ever comes with me. I always have to drive myself.) and I wait forever for a damn x-ray. In the end I had chipped the top of my kneecap (to this day you can feel the chipped piece floating on top of my kneecap). Also, I sprained my ankle so bad that I was told I would have been better off breaking it. Comforting. I had to wear an air cast for almost three months. That really sucked.

The moral of the story: It wasn't a good party unless I ended up in the ER. Judging y my injuries, this party was AWESOME!