“I get no kick from champagne
Mere alcohol doesn’t thrill me at all
So tell me why shouldn’t it be true?
I get a kick out of brew…” – MF DOOM, “One Beer”

Happy New Year, everyone! Let’s make 2026 a good one. Today, I figured I’d tell you the story of the best worst New Year’s Eve party I ever went to. It happened to be the same year that my stepdad passed away.

December, 2009.

Back then, my mom had a computer repair shop in a local strip mall. I helped her run it for a couple of years. Inside the strip mall was an Internet café/gaming spot called The Chill Zone. I used to hang out there after work pretty much every day, to the point where I became friends with the guy that owned the place. The place itself was pretty cool (no pun intended). There were about 30 TVs mounted to each wall, with a couch in front of each one. He mainly had Xbox 360s connected to them, but there were a few PS3s scattered around the place as well. I spent so much time there that he’d basically let me stay there until closing, as long as I paid for a couple hours of play time.

One day, I was there and the owner approached me. “Hey Don, what are you doing for New Year’s?” he asked. Nothing, I said. Why? “I’m having a New Year’s Eve party tomorrow night after closing time. Everyone 21 and over is invited.” Wait, what? How’s that gonna work? “Well, I don’t have a liquor license, obviously, so it’s gonna be B.Y.O.B. Feel free to bring in whatever you want.” Cool! I’ll be there.

I showed up right around 10 PM. The owner had blacked out all the glass windows and locked the door, so I had to knock on the door to get in. I walked in and he was behind the front counter, mixing up some kind of drink. What’s that? I asked as I pointed to a red Solo cup. “It’s a Jägerbomb! You ever had one?” I shook my head. The only alcohol I had experienced up until that point was Guinness (my first ever beer) and Heineken (my 2nd ever beer). For the uninitiated, a Jägerbomb is Jägermeister mixed with Red Bull. “You want to try one?” I shrugged. Fuck it, why not. I drank it quickly. It was pretty good! I drank another one. “Yo, take it easy with those, man, they’re pretty strong.” I drank another one. They barely felt like anything at first, but a few minutes later, I already felt a little buzzed and the owner could tell. “You gonna be okay, man?” I think so. “Alright…I’m watching you, man. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do,” he said, laughing.

A few minutes later, everyone else started showing up, bringing whatever leftover booze they had in their cabinets at home. That night, I had every kind of liquor you could possibly think of. Rum Chata. Black Russian. White Russian. You name it, I probably drank it at some point. Eventually someone decided to start up a game of Rock Band and Drunk Me decided to be the singer (I’m normally the drummer).

Later that night, I was sitting in front of one of the TVs across from the front desk, playing GTA IV. On the couch next to mine was some girl that I wasn’t talking to–because even Drunk Me doesn’t know how to approach women that I don’t know. The owner’s girlfriend–who stood next to him behind the front desk the entire night–thought I was gay. “Nah, he’s cool. He’s just quiet,” said the owner. I ignored both of them and kept driving the streets of Liberty City. Eventually I got hungry, so I paused my game and went to the station of paper plates and snacks that was set up next to the front desk and fixed me a plate, then went back to my couch. A few minutes after eating, I felt sick. Uh-oh…this isn’t good. I ended up puking on the couch (luckily the girl next to me was elsewhere and didn’t see it). Even in my drunken state I realized that I needed to clean it up, so I stumbled to the food station and grabbed some paper towels, but because I was wasted I ended up making the mess even worse.

The owner looked in my couch’s direction and saw it. “Did you do that?” he said, pointing. I nodded. “Yo, you gotta clean that up,” he said. My bad, dude. I tried. “Don’t worry about it, man, we got this.” I got up from the couch, moved out of the way, and the owner & his friend zipped the felt cover off of the couch cushion and ended up throwing it in the dumpster behind the building. I learned my lesson that night: always eat before you drink alcohol.

From that point on, whenever I went to The Chill Zone, I’d see the one couch with no cover on it and remember that night. The owner ended up closing The Chill Zone about a year later. Apparently he had gotten a pretty big investment to open the place and the investor was expecting a sooner ROI than the owner expected. My mom ended up closing her computer shop, too, but that’s a story for another post.

Thanks for reading and Happy New Year.

Song of the Day: Rochelle Jordan – Sum