You wake up naked on a couch you don’t recognize … well, not entirely naked thanks to a strategically-placed sombrero. It’s daytime, though your hot, stinging brain wishes it wasn’t, but you can’t tell the time: a VCR flashes 12:00 over and over again.
Stumbling around using couch cushions as crotch- and butt-covers, you knock over the world’s largest beer can pyramid, to find the bathroom to this mystery apartment. “PENIS” scrawled across your forehead. You pray that it’s dry erase, but your futile wiping proves that, alas, it is Sharpee. Blood is dried at the corners of your lips, but it does not taste like your own.
You need answers, but how do you get them? That is the subject of this week’s How To: Get answers.
Tools:
- Couch cushions
- Cutting implement (Kids, ask your parents first.)
- Sextant (::snicker::)
- Functioning recall faculties
- Confidence
- A mighty yawp
- Internet access
1) Improvise some sort of clothing.
You know, unless you want to walk around with couch cushions all day. You could try searching for your own clothes, but after appraising the evidence thus far, do you really still want them? They’re probably hanging from a tree branch outside, growing a colony of evidence that will only lead to the answers you don’t want. (When the murder charges arise, deny deny deny.)
Remove one of the covers to the couch cushions. (Hopefully they are of the zippered variety.) Cut two leg holes into the side that is opposite the opening. Step into your new burlap culottes and use the zipper to tighten the waist opening.
You are now hands-free to roam the countryside in search of answers.
2) Find your bearings.
OK, so let’s tackle your first meaningful question: where am I? You begin your search by looking for other survivors. Look in every room of the apartment, including bathrooms and closets, which are where people tend to pass out/hide in.
Chances are that if you find anyone else, they will wake up in the same position you’re in. Do not be tempted to include them in your search for answers as they are only a hindrance, still stuck at step one. Leave them behind and move on.
It’s about now that you realize that all apartments look the same inside. You’ll have to get your bearings outside like our primeval naked ancestors, which you now look like.
Scan the horizon for taller landmarks. If none are visible, then find your latitude using the sun, a circle drawn in the ground and an empty Artistocrat bottle at the center. Or hang out in the parking lot until someone goes to their car and ask them.
3) Retrace your steps.
Now that you are functionally clothed and know where you are, try to remember as much as you can about how you get here. Go as far back as you can remember (most memories begin at three years old), skip over all those unfortunate grade school and high school years and figure out where you started last night’s adventure.
Time-travel through getting out of the shower, applying liberal amounts of Tag or Axe body spray and pre-gaming. Where did you go next? Continue to trace through your increasingly blurry timeline of debauchery until some hot chick totally wanted you. At that point, you know that hot chicks never want you, so that’s when you officially blacked out.
Go to wherever you were before you blacked out/hallucinated you were Luther Vandross.
4) Walk confidently.
As you trek to the scene of the blackout, people may notice your couch cushion loincloth. It will awaken ancient feelings of unease within them, especially if they are church folk. As they honk their horns and shout at you, harkening the days of public stonings and banishment, keep your chin up. Ignore these unawakened souls in their starchy collars, and stay focused on your quest for answers.
5) Demand your answers.
You’ve endured a hangover, public nudity and a massive burlap wedgie to get to this doorstep. Do not let your baser need to appeal to polite society stay your hand. Knock ferociously on this door, for within may be the answers you so desperately seek.
If no one answers, bellow into the heavens (and the second floor window): “I WANT ANSWERS!” This is your battle cry, a challenge to the powers within that you lost your cell phone. Stamp the earth, turn over lawn furniture and, if you haven’t already gone, fling your personal filth onto their porch. You shall not leave until you get your answers … or the police arrive.
When someone finally answers the door, you will find they will speak cryptically to you in riddles and rhetorical questions.
“Dude, is that blood?” (Do not answer, for this is rhetorical. Of course it’s blood.)
“You drank my entire bottle of 40-year-old Scotch last night!” (A riddle! How does one drink a middle-aged Scotsman outside of Glasgow?)
“You gonna pay me for that?” (Another rhetorical question!)
Such is the wisdom of the oracle of last night. They will not answer you directly, but merely prompt you further in your search with wizardry and black arts. It is time to leave for home to consider these puzzles.
6) Log in to AIM.
At last! All of your friends are within reach in one spot: your AIM buddy list. Unfortunately, they’re all away, “recovering from one wild night!” You may search their profiles for your answers, but will only find more riddles like “I love all my ho’s!!!” and “A real friend is next to you in jail saying, ‘Wow, that was fun!'”
Do not give up. Leave an away message of your own, apologizing for anything you might have done last night for all to read. Perhaps someone will return to their computer and reply with your answers.
To pass the time, start a Facebook event to get everyone’s phone numbers because you’re going to need a new phone.