On Sobering Up

My sister was born with a brain defect that I was lucky enough not to inherit, despite our shared womb. It has left her with a selective memory, particularly of every time she swears she will 'never drink again'. But last night was my turn, I had insisted. So far, it was looking to be - I had just hit that lovely part of tipsy when it buzzes in the base of your skull, like dunking your brain in an electric footbath. But then she turns to me and says something in that definitely-not-drunk voice. Oh God. She relaxes her face as much as possible, but her wide vibrating pupils betray her state. My foot-spa-fizz short circuits.

Doctors are yet to explain this medical phenomena in which the same digestive system that cannot weather one M&S canned cocktail without a slight wibble can suddenly metabolise much vaster quantities in a period of 25 milliseconds. My own diagnosis is that there is some primitive hard-wiring in my brain that commands to look after your litter-mates when they appear in danger. This would be highly utile in an era when humans lived in caves. Maybe I'd save her from a mammoth attack. However, in the 21st century this instinct has no use except for ruining my partying.

My nervous system involuntarily stopped the fuzzy warmth of rum with a somber gavel strike. I felt serious, like a Russian novel, a grandfather clock. I sat on stairs outside the bathroom whilst she was getting a little bit of the alcohol out of her system. Out the way it came. I had been barred from entering, as she was now being assisted by the party's forgiving host. I was like a man from the nineteen forties in a hospital waiting room anticipating the birth of his child, bouncing leg, bowler hat on his lap. 

So what is it Doc?' I turned to ask at the door's creak.

'Oh just getting some air. She's thrown up again.' 

I thought of a thousand lectures that I would give her when she sobered up. Lectures are what I am particularly good at, as I have mastered the circus act of constantly being on a high horse and having a stick up my arse. And lecture her I did. Obviously the catharsis of that was not great enough, as here I am expelling it on to the page as well. She is recovered, if suffering a blow of hangxiety. And she swears she will never, ever drink again.