In the beginning...

"You know dear, if you don't want a morning after, you should not have a night before"- my Grandmother to me over breakfast at a pumpkin farm, 1997-ish.

Criteria #23: Has been lectured by one or more people regarding beverage consumption.
This quote stuck with me, and I still like to bust it out as a self penalty. It is a very wise statement, and is tied very closely to most hot mess statuses (although not all.) It took place during my first visible hangover. I had, the night before, decided that since I had to meet my mother and Grandparents for breakfast very early in the morning, I should therefore drink half a case of Labatt Blue and jump on a trampoline the entire night. This was not pretty. I did vomit, over the edge of the trampoline, a quantity of macaroni and cheese, Labatt and Boone's Farm (yeah, you've all done it, don't lie) that evening.

Upon waking up I felt quite ill, but reluctantly got in the car to go to the pumpkin farm. Mostly, it was guilt (which as adults, we call anxiety... or denial.) I knew I had done something wrong, and I knew the best way to erase that with my mother, who at the time, had quit drinking for about 4 years and could smell alcohol a mile away, was to pretend I really wanted to go hang out with old people over breakfast. I didn't want to eat anything. It pained me to smell food, and it pained me even more to hear children laughing while trying to navigate the hoards of people shopping for pumpkins and getting their faces painted. My feet were dragging as I navigated the gourds blindly with sunglasses indoors. All I wanted was to die or to be at home watching cartoons. I looked at the menu and thought really hard about what I might be able to swallow and decided a pancake would do. These were NOT normal pancakes. They were 2 HUGE flapjacks that took up the whole plate. I poked at them and stared into space while everyone else ate. My Grandfather was disgusted. He would barely speak to me. When he got up to look at pumpkins my Grandmother leaned over the table, set her hand on my arm and whispered the (above) famous quote. It was the first time someone said something to me about the number of beverages I had consumed, and it was not the last. It was however, the last time I EVER drank Canadian beer... until my 19th birthday when we went to Canada, but that's a whole different story... I would like to state for the record, I am not condoning drinking here. However, it is often found attached to any given hot mess or hot mess situation or attempts to forget the situation. Everyone knows that being hung over is NOT fun or cool or chic... Except the woman pictured below.

That was the beginning stages of hot mess moments in my life. If only she had given me that advice one day earlier, everything would be different... (Criteria #64: The belief that it is someone else's fault/a circumstance that did this do you.)


I am happy to hear your stories and debacles so please, feel free to comment and/or email stories you'd like retold in a sarcastic and demeaning manner: you may win a Hot Mess of the Month Award** which entails a wonderful mystery gift.


**Being a hot mess is not a great idea. Ask Lindsay Lohan, Boy George or Sarah Palin. I recommend waiting until at least age 14 to become a full blown hot mess, in other words, this website is not into child hot mess-ary.  Criteria #16: You cannot be a hot mess if you are trying to be as such- that's a flopped mess and it's lame because there's no shame involved.