We’ve all been there — too much to drink and not enough to keep your hazy brain occupied. So drunk you, logically, must fill the void. Maybe we stumble into the wrong guy or into a very breakable object, or maybe we spike our phones into the ground like we’re playing football at Camp Randall Stadium.

These are our staff’s tragic stories of love lost, failed quests and the moments when we were simply too drunk. These are The Badger Herald staff’s worst — or maybe best? — drinking stories. At least, these are the ones we remember. 

• I started off the night strong. My friends dared me to drink some hand sanitizer. Being a man of pride, I couldn’t say no. After chasing the sanitizer with Ron Diaz, we played Fuck the Dealer and I started with the deck of cards. That deck of cards never left my hands, as I ended up flipping the cards toward my friends who neglected to tell me they could easily see the cards. After about 30ish cards, my memory fades. It fades back in as I’m ordering two McDoubles at McDonald’s. I got through that with ease. What tripped me up was the cup for water. Getting the cup was easy, getting the water in was very difficult. I ended up putting fruit punch in it instead of water, which the manager of the fine establishment did not take kindly to. So long story short, I got bounced from McDonalds.
• I was too many shots deep during an innocent pregame at my apartment when I decided this was the perfect time to go into my room and check my email. I saw I had an email from my Spanish TA about tips for our upcoming exam. Important disclaimer: I was mildly in love with this TA. So naturally, I emailed him back. I drunkenly pounded out a response — in Spanish — zealously thanking my TA and explaining how I thought he was such a great TA and I really enjoyed his discussion, blah blah blah. The next morning I had an email from said TA reading, “Gracias,” followed by a little smiley face. Long story short, we’re married now. Just kidding — I avoided his eye contact for the remainder of the semester.
• On the morning of the Hawaii game this year, my roomie and I were hellbent on buying Hawaiian shirts from Ragstock to wear to the game. We got there and I found the next best thing: a Kool-Aid man costume — Badger red, Hawaiian Punch, you get the gist. My thinking probz went like this: “Yeah, let’s buy a $50 costume so you can get a little shitty later and yell ‘OHHHHHH YEEEEEAHHH’ as you walk down the street. It’ll be hilarious!!!” Maybe I took the whole dressed-as-a-pitcher-filled-with-liquid persona a little too seriously or maybe I just forgot what it was like to pregame for a non-11a.m. game, but I got WASTED. We get to a tailgate and the guy hosting said, “watch out the grill is still hot in the back.” I. Did. Not. Hear. This. While running over to greet my friends by pretending to smash through a wall as any true Kool-Aid man would, I slipped on an extension cord and leaned on the grill to catch my fall. BAD IDEA. A little too drunk to feel the searing pain, I ran into the kitchen pointing to my arm where my friends drop their jaws and start taking ice out of the beer cooler and rubbing it over my burnt skin. Meanwhile, I’m standing there going “OHHH NNNnnnoooooo, OHHH NNNnnnnooooo,” because obviously I have to stay in character.
• After going through a bad breakup with my high school girlfriend my freshman year, I decided I was going to get hammered and let my friends help me get over her. I wasn’t a huge drinker in high school, but decided to drink about a third of a bottle of Vodka during the night anyway. I was piss drunk. My friends took me to a party and handed me a cup of wop, and after that I don’t remember much. Then they brought a girl over who wanted to talk to me. About 5 minutes into the conversation I burped, she asked me if I was OK and I proceeded to throw up on her. Luckily it was very dark in the basement where the party was. This girl was screaming, my friend who saw everything grabbed me, dragged me out without anyone noticing and I somehow avoided complete embarrassment.
• I was in Canada going out with some friends. The club we were planning on going to was closed and it was December and cold so we just walked into the next closest place. We were several rum and cokes deep at this point, so clearly none of us thought it was strange that all of the girls were half naked and most of the people there were middle-aged men. We were drunk and dancing and having a grand old time. The four-poster bed in the middle of the club didn’t seem strange, nor did the pole or the shower. Anything goes with Rob Ford? It wasn’t until I tried to go upstairs and they told me I had to be naked to enter that I remembered Canada had just legalized prostitution. We ran out of there so fast. Icing on the cake? I had to meet my conservative family the next day for lunch and spent the entire time puking in the bathroom and trying to play it off as the flu. I don’t think it worked.
• So, first off, this story takes some context. The night before the story takes place (Friday), we threw a house party and my roommate brought his beer pong table downstairs for all the guests to play on. Instead of using it to play beer pong, our guests decided it would be more fun to just jump on top of it over and over until it was in 1,000 pieces. The next night, I got a little too intoxicated. By the time 3 a.m. came around, I was feeling rather bold. I dared my friends to dare me to eat a chunk of the beer pong table. There was absolutely zero incentive in me eating it — what can I say, I just wanted to eat a piece of table. So I did. I chewed and swallowed a chunk of my roommates’ beer pong table. I then proceeded to pass out and wake up in the morning with the contents of my bedroom piled on top of me. I also discovered my friends, in addition to throwing everything in my room on my bed, ordered Topperstix after I was already full from eating the table.