And find me a white coat

I had a very weird experience on Sunday morning: I awoke without a hangover.

This is not to say (steady on, Mum) that I habitually wake with a hangover of a Sunday, though perhaps I sometimes do, but that on this particular Sunday I deserved a hangover. More than that: I deserved a whopper of a hangover.

Having supped the previous night on a concoction of champagne, white wine, red wine, mulled wine and some suspicious clear liquid that appeared in a cup by my chair sometime shortly after 2am I was prepared for the worst. I was also willing to accept the worst, having had a brilliant time at a party thrown by one of my favourite people about.

So I woke on Sunday with some trepidation. Was it here already? How bad was it? I sat up in bed. I felt... okay. I rolled about a bit. I felt... not bad. I got up to get a glass of water. I felt... quite good. A bit wobbly, maybe. A teensy bit thick headed but nothing particularly special. I felt... well fuck it I felt quite good actually.

The solution was obvious once I thought of it, and it made my heart sink: I was still drunk. Brilliant. Clearly my hangover was in the post and I was too dumb and still too drunk to realise it. Even so I hauled myself out of bed, padded about to the couch and returned to my napping state. I woke up later and felt... good. Rested even. Still no headache. No nausea. No sweats. No vague sense that I might the previous night have killed a man just to watch him die.

I waited for the hangover all day. I took it slowly. I half heartedly drank some water. I cooked an unnecessary hangover breakfast. Nuthin'.

The weirdest thing is that by contrast light-of-my-life Young Andy was in a bad state. He lay on the couch, groaning occasionally and napping often. But he'd been drinking water half the night before to enable him to prepare himself for an early morning bike ride. Yet while I could have ridden a quick country mile (so long as I were heading somewhere enticing, such as a country pub) he was in no fit state to do so. What the hell was happening?

Two days on my solution is simple: Somehow I gave my hangover the slip. I don't know how I did it or where it went (though Andy's head is a distinct possibility) but I managed to pull it off. Out there in the ether, somewhere, the hangover probably still drifts, having lost its way completely, searching for its rightful resting place: my body. I should feel guilty about the poor dude and how lonely he must be but, on the contrary, I feel bloody great about it - if all drinking could be this consequence free I'd do a hell of a lot more of it.

Clearly this is a discovery of some kind. Men in labcoats must be told. The CSIRO should be alerted. More importantly, the boundaries of this new-found booze immunity shall be tested. Someone hand me the mulled wine - I'm on the edge of a flipping scientific breakthrough over here.