Guest Post: Mitzi Wilson

It was the worst hangover of my life.

It began in the morning when my eyes drifted open. I lifted my face up from the centre of the pillow, mouth like desert sand.

I asked myself the obligatory morning-after questions. Where am I? What did I do last night?

My eyes moved towards the radio on the bedside table. The time gleamed softly out of the screen. 8.20AM.

Four consecutive thoughts flew out of my ears and slapped me in the face, one at a time:

I’m in Kuala Lumpur.

We have a flight to Langkawi to catch.

We have to check out of this hotel in the morning.

It is the morning.

Shit.

I thrashed about trying to get out of bed. Arms flailing and sheets flying, I wailed incoherent words at my friend to get up and get dressed. We were going to miss our plane. We would never make it to our Langkawi accommodation! Man my head hurt.

I stood frozen in a fully fledged freak-out and looked from the bathroom, to my belongings strewn all over the floor- everywhere but in my bag. My heart tried to escape from my chest. I went through the scenario in my head, calculating the time it would take to get ready, pack, check out, get to the airport and check our bags in.

If we left in 10 minutes, we might just make it.

My friend limped to the bathroom, and the door clicked shut. I stood there in my clothes from the night before. I had visions of a night club called the Rum Jungle, dancing bare foot with an entire bottle of scotch and a shark tank. Huh?

I felt a rapid flush as my body caught up with me. My vision began to blur and I felt something rise up in my oesophagus. I looked around, desperate for something to vomit in. I saw a sink.

I lurched forward and spewed up a soup of spicy fried rice and concentrated Johnny Walker into the silver bowl. When did I eat fried rice?

I retched for about five minutes and grappled for a near by water bottle. I threw my head back, skulled the bottle and sprayed it all over floor. It was Vodka.

I cursed myself for not cleaning up and wiped my face as my tongue dissolved from the vodka disguised as water.

I threw up three more times before we checked out- twice in the sink and once in the toilet at reception. My ears were ringing. I felt like absolute balls.

Falling into a Taxi and carrying a hangover from hell, we left the Kuala Lumpur hotels blurring behind us. I fell into a half-sleep with my mouth open, on fire and against the window.

Arriving at the airport we hurried to the gate and handed our boarding pass to the lady standing by the beeping, ticket scanner- thing. It wasn’t working so she manually checked our tickets and ushered us inside the aerobridge.

I felt the freak-out subside and headache fade, we were saved. I could sleep on the plane all the way to Langkawi in the air conditioning. Yes!

I walked to my row, stopping intermittently as people filled the overhead lockers. I noticed someone in my seat. What? I looked down to double check my ticket and looked again at the seat number-13B. Someone was definitely in my seat.

I felt a tap on my shoulder and turned around to see a worried looking flight attendant. She took our tickets and explained that we had boarded the wrong plane. Our flight wasn’t leaving for 45 minutes.

I felt tears.

We trudged back off the plane and sat down on the terminal chairs at the nearest opportunity. I looked down at my shameful appearance; a large t-shirt attempted to camouflage my dress from the night before. My hair resembled the Medusa and I sat in a stench cloud of scotch, vomit and hairspray. My head sagged on my friends shoulder.

Within minutes, a boarding call summoned us and we repeated the stop-start process of finding our seat. This time, my seat was empty.

I looked out at sweaty Kuala Lumpur holding a spew bag and water bottle close by. Sighing and sinking into the seat, I imagined white sand, palm trees and the island paradise of Langkawi.

My hangover wasn’t over – but we were finally on our way.