Fog

I've always said that being hungover is more dangerous than being drunk. While I may say or do something careless or senseless after my fourth glass of wine, at least at the time, I think what I'm saying or doing is interesting. However, when I wake up the next day, the opposite is true. I'm a complete space cadet, incapable of putting together a series of words without a splattering of "um"s or "uhhh"s, and so indecisive that I stand in the bathroom for ten minutes, contemplating whether I should brush my teeth or take a shower first. 

May I even be so bold as to say that driving hungover is worse than driving drunk? My reaction time is nil and my judgement may be even worse. And I'm a sensitive, paranoid mess. I've spent quite a few hungover mornings, poring over an email someone sent to me. (Why did my editor push up my deadline? Is she hinting that my stories are so atrocious that she needs more time to edit them?) Only to return a painfully awkward, overwritten email that just should have read, "No problem."

Well, it looks like The New Yorker supports my theory: 

But hangover symptoms are not just physical; they are cognitive as well. People with hangovers show delayed reaction times and difficulties with attention, concentration, and visual-spatial perception. A group of airplane pilots given simulated flight tests after a night’s drinking put in substandard performances. Similarly, automobile drivers, the morning after, get low marks on simulated road tests. Needless to say, this is a hazard, and not just for those at the wheel. There are laws against drunk driving, but not against driving with a hangover.

So back to the relevance of this diatribe: After drinking from a smorgasbord of cheap red wine and canned beer last night, I decided to take on the remedial task of doing laundry this morning. I haven't been to a laundromat in quite some time so that may explain part of the confusion that follows, but really, the whole thing is pretty inexcusable. Anyway, I unloaded my bag of clothes into the machine and turned to my friend, who also had her share of assorted booze the previous evening, and asked her, "Where do I put the detergent?" 

"Right on top?" she shrugged, pointing to the clothes. She had been to this laundromat before. 

I stared at the pile in the machine, the detergent box weighted in my hand. Something didn't look right. 

"Hey, where do you put the detergent?" my friend called out to one of the locals doing laundry. "On top?"

He turned to us and said, "That's a dryer." 

The scary part is that before all this laundry hoopla, I successfully scooped peanut butter, filled cereal containers and displayed (and ate a lot of) bacon. I guess all this proves is that when riddled with a hangover, my body is more used to performing restaurant tasks than domestic or common sensical ones.