Champagne Katie − 24 February, 1996
Lynn was the first of the group to get hitched and we had all been anticipating the wedding day for almost a year. It would be a huge party at a fancy country club with free flowing alcohol and stories about the good old days of high school.
At this point we were all in prime drinking shape – it was the end of college so we had built up some pretty hefty tolerances over the past few years. Even though we all considered ourselves to be accomplished drinkers, the undisputed champion was Katie.
“I am a little concerned that I am not going to have enough time at the wedding to get good and hammered,” Katie confided in me at lunch the day of the wedding.
“What are you talking about,” I shot back between bites of my greasy burger which was the cure for my hangover from rehearsal dinner the night before (that is another story altogether).
Katie pushed her untouched burger plate away from her and declared, “Well I am certainly not eating today. I don’t want anything slowing down the flow of alcohol into the bloodstream. Tonight is going to be a BLAST!”
“Yeah, we haven’t seen some of these people in years! And Lynn and Jimmy are such an awesome couple.”
I was stuck after the ceremony taking pictures with the other bridesmaids in our cookie cutter dresses and uncomfortable shoes, so I didn’t see Katie until I arrived at the reception.
“Trace, I have only been here for 30 minutes and I have already had 7 glasses of champagne,” Katie squealed in delight.
Next time I saw her she was an additional 7 glasses in, and this time she came barreling towards me and my dad with a huge slightly lopsided grin on her face.
“JOHN, I LOVE YOU,” Katie exclaimed as she bear hugged my dad and lifted him a good 3 inches off of the floor. (This might be a good time to add in the little detail that Katie is about 6’2” and my dad, John, is about 5’8”.)
Katie proceeded to drink and dance and drink and fall and drink and drink and drink. Finally, the lack of food in her stomach signaled hunger so Katie teetered over to the buffet line. Her long blond hair which usually hung about half way down her back was now hanging in the silver serving dish of chile con queso as she leaned over it shoving chips and cheese into her mouth. The wedding guests behind her in the buffet line tried to decide if they should say something or just let the spectacle continue in awkward silence until finally someone grabbed a plate, filled it with chips and queso, handed it to Katie and nudged her out of the line.
Through blurry double vision, Katie then spotted Lynn and Jimmy sitting a table nearby chatting with some of Lynn’s father’s friends. Katie stumbled over and loomed over Lynn, barely balancing the plate of food in one hand and wildly gesturing with the other while she proclaimed her undying friendship.
“I leally ruv you guys so much,” Katie slurred. Luckily, Jimmy spotted this fiasco in the making and swooped in just in time to rescue the plate of food before it landed in the lap of Lynn’s beautiful white beaded gown.
I was on the dance floor when Mrs. Emmons tapped me on the shoulder and said, “Traci, you need to get Katie out of here, she is passed out in the bathroom.”
“Alright, let me find Mitch and John so they can help me carry her to my car.”
Now, Katie is quite slender, but six feet two inches of dead weight is not easy to hoist into the back of a Toyota Corolla. John had one arm and one leg as did Mitch and they kind of managed a swinging motion to propel Katie head first into the back of my car.
The plan was to take her to my parent’s house where I was also staying and just plop her on the couch where she could sleep off her self-induced alcohol coma. Of course, things like this rarely go according to plan.
As I pulled into my parent’s driveway, Katie was just starting to stir. She made an unidentifiable groaning noise and then crawled out the car into the front yard and proceeded to yack up the entire contents of her stomach. Fortunately, the entire contents of her stomach consisted of champagne and chile con queso so it just looked like someone dumped a bowl of melted Velveeta into the yard.
After coaxing Katie into the house and laying out a sleeping bag for her to curl up and pass out on, I grabbed a blanket, kicked off my shoes and laid down on the couch in exhaustion. What a night a thought as I closed my eyes and drifted off.
My restful sleep did not lasted long as I was jolted awake by a loud crashing noise. I sat up just as my mom threw on the light at the top pf the stair case which illuminated the pictures askew on the wall all the way down the stairs and Katie in the heap on the bottom step.
“Oh my GOD, Katie’s dead” my mom screamed in horror!
I ran over and stood over her body and she shouted at her, “Katie, you fell!”
This seemed to wake her up. She lifted her head and looked me square in the eye and in her bitchiest tone she stated with absolute certainty, “I did not fail anything.”
She then crawled on her and knees into the nearby bathroom and slammed the door.
“Katie, please let me in, I want to make sure you are ok,” I pleaded.
In answer to my pleas, Katie cracked open the door and flung her pants out at me.
“Katie, why are your pants wet? Why is the sleeping bag wet?”
And then it hit me.
“Katie you peed in the sleeping bag!!”
At this point, things finally started to quiet down and everyone managed to find their way back to bed and to sleep.
The next morning my dad got up and made us all bacon and eggs in hopes that this would ward off some of Katie’s inevitable pain from the hard night of drinking. While we all sat around the table laughing about the evening drama, my mom brought up a good point.
“Katie, what do you think you were doing upstairs, looking for a bathroom?”
“I dunno” Katie said after thinking about for a few seconds, “I was probably trying to molest Brett.”
My then 16 year old brother Brett began choking on his eggs and we all just had to laugh at the wildly inappropriate comment.
“Sorry,” Katie exclaimed as we all cracked up, “I guess I am still drunk!”
It was at breakfast that morning that my dad came up with the nickname, and to this day she is still known at my house as Champagne Katie. God love her.
Comments:
kga245 (July 17, 2006. 04:09pm)
Yay! Great story. Thanks for sharing, Trace.
Philadelphia Flyers (July 17, 2006. 11:01pm)
I love Katie.
Philadelphia Flyers (July 17, 2006. 11:01pm)
I love Katie.
katieclouette (July 18, 2006. 11:44pm)
Oh my god!!! I'm that Katie.
phineasgage (July 24, 2006. 01:55pm)
What a great story! That's a nickname to be proud of. The world needs more Champagne Katie's.
wade1j (October 13, 2006. 06:19pm)
I laughed out loud at the comment "I didn't fail anything". Ain't that the truth.
wade1j (October 13, 2006. 07:16pm)
I laughed out loud at the comment "I didn't fail anything". Ain't that the truth.
wade1j (October 13, 2006. 07:17pm)
I laughed out loud at the comment "I didn't fail anything". Ain't that the truth.
Oblivious (February 2, 2007. 02:02am)
This reminds me of a story a friend of mine once told me. She's quite the drinker, as well.