Let's just say that getting out of bed this morning was one of the more painful things I've had to do in a while. I suppose my boast of never getting a hangover is probably catching up to me -- either that, or I'm getting old and I just don't want to admit it.

I'm the product of liberal parents. They never really had a problem with me drinking, their only concern was that I made it home safely and that I didn't attempt to operate heavy machinery (translation: a car) while under the influence. Thankfully, I've either had a designated driver, a mediocre public transportation system or my own two legs to get me home. I suppose that's the reason why my parents okayed my drinking at a younger-than-legal age, though a fair amount of my drinking was done in their presence -- a glass of wine with dinner at a restaurant, a purchase of a bottle of brandy in Quebec City (because I could due to their more lax liquor laws), stuff like that.

My first real experience with getting drunk, though, was when I was 12. At temple, they used to pass around these little plastic shot glasses with Manischewitz so that we could all have some after the blessing over the wine. However, they'd pass them around and then leave the leftovers available for public consumption. I was at one of my classmate's bar mitzvahs and someone else challenged me to a kosher wine shot glass competition, and I stupidly accepted the challenge. I did win -- I took down 15, since I'd had many years to build up an immunity to kosher wine while my challenger wasn't Jewish and hadn't had it before. But this strange feeling of the world being tilted and mildly two-dimensional was fairly new to me.

Thus beginneth Keith's foray into alcohol. And as far as my present-day situation is concerned, now that I've been upright for a little while, the effects of last night's abuse are thankfully fading.