Okay girls here is an analogy – you are a security guard. You work at the front desk of a very important financial institution that houses millions of dollars of accounts. Do you think your job is important? You bet it is. Do you think it is a good idea if, as a security guard, you should get very intoxicated and fall asleep on the job? Yeah, probably not.
Now pretend that this isn’t a building, it is a VIP you are guarding – perhaps a movie star or a senator. How long would you keep your security job if you frequently smoked weed? Or if were taking a selfie every couple of minutes, or zoned out on your phone? Or walked around wearing headphones will Skrillex playing SUPER LOUD? We will mail you your last check because you are fired.
Risking Your Life with Headphones
Okay here is the point of the analogy- that VIP is you. When you are drunk, or high, or zoned out to your phone or wearing those headphones that render you TOTALLY DEAF while walking down a busy street – who exactly is watching out for YOU? Are you not the VIP of your own life? If you aren’t you SHOULD be. It won’t matter how important you think your boyfriend, husband, child, phone, or musical choices are – if you don’t take care of you, there is no one else who can.
No one walks around in your skin, wears your shoes, or looks out from your eyeballs. Your mom might be an overbearing, ever present fountain of wisdom for you on a daily basis, but she isn’t wearing your pants and she isn’t driving your car. Mom or dad are not going to be able to fix the problems that your failure to pay attention in your own life will create.
It is sad that this actually has to be said, but the only time when you should be wearing headphones is when you are alone and in a safe place where you don’t need your hearing. That of course is pretty rare. It is much like the criteria for getting “drunk”. You should be in safe place where you are surrounded by people who will not resent having to take care of you while you are incapacitated. That is even more rare.
Be Smart
Having a cocktail doesn’t make you a drunk. Having six shots, two margaritas and eight beers in three hours when you weigh under 150 lbs is going to make you sloppy drunk. Please for the love of GOD will you young girls stop bragging about how much you can drink! Stop telling those guys you can drink them “under the table” when you know, deep in your heart that they think you are crazy and the only thing they want under the table is you. Honestly what kind of bizarre job interview are you applying for anyway? Town drunk or village idiot?
It is great to have fun, but where are your boundaries? Is your life so disposable that you will risk everything you are, your entire body, because you need to want to party? Why would you put yourself into a disabled and vulnerable position with strangers? By the way girls, if he/she isn’t on a first name basis with your Mom – THEY ARE STRANGERS! I honestly cannot figure out why a girl can meet someone and a week later believe in her heart that she “knows them really well”. That’s not being trusting – that’s beeing reckless and stupid.
One true fact of life is that real friends are formed over time, after going through real life experiences with them. If you really don’t know each others history, then those people cannot be trusted to take care of you if you become intentionally disabled – nor should they have to take that responsibility.
Would you dump your toddler off on someone you just met a week ago? Of course not because you care about the toddler and wouldn’t expect to impose on a veritable stranger that way. But when you get sloppy drunk away from home, aren’t you kind of dumping yourself on the people around you like an irresponsible overgrown toddler? Think about it…
Here are some common examples of the natural progression of the evening when you choose to get disablingly drunk and fail to protect yourself-
- You Dress up really nice to go out.
- You put on expensive clothing, jewelry, shoes and perfume.
- You take a considerable amount of time doing your hair and make-up.
- You arrive at party/bar/event.
(Notice at this point you actually like yourself, perhaps you’re even proud of how you look – and would be UPSET if someone so much as messed up your hair. This is the point where if you make bad choices for yourself you really will become your own worst enemy)
- You Drink Alcohol
- You talk too much
- You Drink more alcohol
- You piss off someone close to you without knowing it – you will find out in a couple of days and won’t remember so you will blame them for being touchy.
- You Drink more alcohol.
- You laugh inappropriately and make fun of someone at top volume.
- You smoke something
- You argue with people you don’t know over nothing
- You drink more alcohol.
- Video is taken of you screaming or dancing on furniture or in the road – you will lose your job in a couple of days over this, and some magazine in Mexico buys the video for their “American Girls Gone Wild” series.
- Guys are watching and see you are drunk and circle around hoping to get lucky.
- Guy(s) encourage you to drink more alcohol or offer to smoke weed with you.
- You get emotional and cry about your grandpa who died eight years ago.
- A girl in the bathroom consoling you for your grief becomes your new best friend.
- You drunk text your ex and tell him that he was the love of your life.
- You take a crooked blurry selfie that you think looks super sexy.
- You send selfie, along with drunk text to your ex and tell him to suck it because you are way hotter now.
- You take a ride on a motorcycle and scream at the driver to GO FASTER!!!! Although he is also kinda buzzed.
- You get back to party realize your friends are gone.
- You bump into people, fall down stairs, flip over balcony, fall in bathtub
- You get photographed in various states of undress
- You get photographed in compromising positions with people you wouldn’t even talk to if you were sober.
- You throw up on your friends new couch.
- The photo of you with your head in a toilet goes viral.
- Persistant suitor with questionable motives tells you how pretty you are even though you smell like puke, an unidentifiable stain on your dress and gum in your hair.
- You lose your purse or phone.
- You lose your glasses, contacts, shoes, coat, etc.
- You get thrown out of the party/bar or other public establishment
- It’s cold out and you have no shoes or coat
- You pass out in a public place
- You get photographed by a whole bunch of people who don’t know or care about you.
- You have sex and don’t remember it.
- You wake up with no pants on.
- You are lost and cannot find your friends, your car, or your way home.
- If you’re lucky you get arrested for public intoxication -or-
- You take a ride with a stranger.
- You dissappear
The above can have minor to major complications. You might just pass out at a friends house and wake up really hung over. Or you could lose your best friend, your job, or the respect of people who used to count on you. Or you could wreck your car, kill yourself or kill someone else and not even remember it.
But it was fun right?
Be Present
Two words that drive my daughter crazy every time I say it. It means tune in – pay attention to what is happening. Talk to each other. The simple rule in the house is that the people in the room are more important than those people who are not in the room. As a mom – I use social media. It has value and serves a purpose. Of course it does, after all, I am blogging right now. But is it your LIFE? Do you really need to tune into some device every two minutes to see what everyone else it doing in order to feel like you have a life? Do you really need to reply to that text THIS SECOND? Should you really be listening to The Weekend over and over and over again for two weeks straight? Is it any wonder you are totally annoyed when anyone tries to actually talk to you?
You react as if others are RUDE for interrupting your constant barrage of noise and data and photos and videos that make up your electronic world. But do you realize that this is not your world? This constant stream of data and noise is, in fact, stealing your very present world from you one minute, one hour, one day, one year, one relationship, one experience at a time.
I was with my youngest daughter at a yogurt shop recently. She was sullen that I had made her put her phone away as the price for her free dessert. But after a couple minutes, as usual, she got bored with the silence and started talking. As we were talking casually, I looked over at a young couple at a table nearby and my jaw dropped. They had the most adorable little 2 year old daughter who was standing on a chair and trying desperately to get her parents attention. They both were completely absorbed in their phones and only looked up to scold her if she tried to grab something on the table or climb on it. It was an effort of my will not to walk over to them and say “Look up you fools – you are missing it – your daughter has was one childhood. Why did you bring her here? To ignore her?”. I took out my camera to snap a picture when my daughter stopped me. She is the one who hates confrontation after all.
This to me was nothing less than heartbreaking. One day those parents are going to look up and their daughter will be wearing a push up bra and eyeliner and that cute little girl who wanted them to see her will be out the door. Probably wearing headphones so she cannot hear them as they yell out the door “Where are you going?”.
Meanmom USA 