A court in Frankfurt ruled recently that a hangover is an illness. Too late for my granny. I buried her alive many years ago in an increasingly distant and even dimmer youth because of a hangover. I was so desperately sick.
When I drank spirits in those days – I don’t anymore – it was followed inevitably by three days of hell before resurrection. Yes, it was done before but in my case there were repeats (some of us never learn!).
There’d be the throwing up of bile, as green as New York’s Hudson River on St Patrick’s Day, followed by hours of dry wretching, severe headache and, eventually, sleep.
Then it’d be dehyradation once again before that blessed plateau phase as peace came dropping slow on mind and body. About then, it’d be possible to drink water, ideally sweet and fizzy, without expecting another green gush, such as in that film The Exorcist.
So the long road to normality began with fervent litanies of “never again”. Sure! It was in such throes early one Monday morning all those years ago that I found it necessary to ring in my then place of work to announce that my granny had died.
Riddled with guilt
This was greatly exaggerated, as she lived for years afterwards. But they did not know that. And I almost caught myself out. The next day, riddled with guilt, I was on the road to work, though still not well, when it dawned on me that my bosses knew I was from the west.
They would probably be a tad surprised that I could have been home, attended the removal and burial of my granny, and be back in Dublin all in one day.
I stayed away for two more days.
It wasn’t worth it. Like a boy who mitched from school, I soon found the combination of boredom and guilt was destroying any satisfaction in having all that time off.
I can’t see the idea of a hangover as illness catching on here. I mean, imagine a note to HR: “Dear Majella, I was on a notorious batter last night and am sick as a dog today. The doctor has given me a note.”
What HR person in the world would not blanch at the cheek of that!
(I wouldn’t dare, Majella!).
Hang-over, American English, " after-effect of excessive drinking".
inaword@irishtimes.com
