Hot Pepper Vodka

 # Mistake At seventeen, I was an early entrant to the University. I was academically ready for all that college had to offer, but I had a lot to learn about parties. Nearby our dorm, one of the students ( I think her name was Wendy ) rented a house with her "Let's be friends" roommate. She was so happy to rent the house that she threw a house party for all her dorm friends including me and my roommates Raphael and Collin. She knew that Raphael was sometimes out of his mind, but what she didn't know was that Raphael and I had already determined to black out by the end of the night. We just got our results back from the last exam and we would rather forget about it. We entered the party very politely and tried to behave. In the living room people were passing around a pipe and they looked and smelled happy so Raphael and I decided to join in. We lost track of time and mostly sat around and laughed about stupid jokes like how Descartes is really pronounced "Desk crates". Some other dudes were having a conversation about Gödel's incompleteness in which we called Gödel's incontinance. Then we suddenly felt the tang of incompleteness. We realized that we had a severe case of the munchies and were very thirsty. Collin was also there and he was big. Between the three of us, we finished off the three cases of Bock's that was in the kitchen. We were feeling pretty good. Raphael even went out into the lawn and rode his air motorcycle. He kept making the sound of a chicken. He said that was the sound of the "G" string on his banjo. > "Ba-cock!!" I started to make the sound too and join him in the lawn. > "Ba-cock!!" We sweat a little bit out there and were strangely warm and thirsty. We came back to join the party and ( Wendy ) the girl who was throwing the party said there were no more drinks. Raphael couldn't take "no" for an answer and he started scrummaging for drinks. He found some vanilla extract in the fridge, but just laughed. Then he opened the freezer. There was one lonely bottle of hot pepper vodka that Wendy used for cooking. We figured this was the answer to our thirstiness. Raphael tried a sip and spit out: > ***Putain Merdasse!!*** He was a disturbed French man. I took the bottle from him and finished off about half a liter of red hot pepper vodka. I said, > "There, there. That's not so hard." Then it hit. Vodka never really tastes like anything on the lips or on the mouth, but when it goes down it burns and hot pepper vodka burns even more. I was a little dizzy and sweating more. Then I ran to the toilet. I stayed there for what seemed like eternity. My other roommate Collin stayed with me. There was a loud porcelain echo humming from the porcelain goddess and ringing through my head. > Whhlruk!!! Collin stayed with me the whole time until I felt better. Wendy was crying and kicked me and Raphael and Collin out of the house. She said, > "I never want to see you in my house again!" Collin carried me back to the dormitory. I'm pretty sure I passed out on the way because the next thing I knew was that I was in my bed. Before that time I saw Collin as the stuck up roomate and Raphael as the fun roomate, but after that time I knew that Collin would stick with me. He said, > "Bro.. Blood is thicker than water." Yeah, and water is thicker than vodka. Although it doesn't always come out that way.  Years later doing a chicken fight together. This creative nonfiction was inspired by [the inkwell prompt # 26](https://peakd.com/hive-170798/@theinkwell/creative-nonfiction-in-the-ink-well-prompt-26).