The Frog Prince

One of the biggest parties I ever went to was an open air beach party at a local decrepit lake. The beach was good enough for sun tanning and on this occasion, for 100 teenagers to get piss drunk on, but the water was usually to be avoided. I’m not entirely sure how this party was planned, but it was for the seniors at a bunch of the surrounding high schools. A group of us met at the train station, loaded with booze and high expectations. My poison of choice for the night was a 26’er of Vodka and 2 litres of Raspberry Soda. The trip was a good 20 minutes, so we all took a head start on celebrating the night. By the time we got off the train, we were pretty buzzed, and my one especially nimble mate even managed to perform some impressive drunken acrobatics with the handle rings that hung from the ceiling of the carriage before we arrived.

The party was a mish-mash of cliques from all over the eastern suburbs. There were skaters, jocks, preps, goths, punks, plastics, and even some of the shy nerdy-types were seen lingering around the perimeter of the beach – trying to have a good time without getting their arses kicked. It wasn’t something I was used to seeing.

I got too lazy attempting to mix my drink, so I would take a swig of Vodka and then chase it down with a gulp of pop. After an hour or two, my mouth was numb enough that I gave up on the pop all together. I would say I had about 24 of the 26 oz of alcohol when one of my mates attempted to cut me off. I caused a bit of a scene with the refusal to give up my booze and the struggle for the bottle ended with it smashing against a tree. Oops! By this point, I was messy drunk and although I probably should have been admitted to the hospital to get my stomach pumped, I luckily escaped with ‘only’ an alcoholic black-out.

I can only remember the rest of the night in isolated flashes of images – like a slideshow: Sloppy tongues. Making out. Water splashes. Searching for my ‘Frog Prince’ (WTF, I know). Neon lights. MacDonald’s. Running. Falling. Where’s my Frog Prince? Train coming! Being pulled from the tracks just before the train rushed by... and that was it.

The next thing I remember I woke up in my mate’s spare bedroom with a bucket beside my bed and sand in my bra and panties. Luckily, I woke up alone, but if I was always alone in that bed was anyone’s guess. I felt like complete and utter shit – probably one of the top 2 hangovers I have ever had in my life. I didn’t even care about the scratchy sand that was chafing my butt crack. I just wanted to lay there and try to convince my body not to hurt. I couldn’t even decide what hurt more – my head or my ankle.

Another hour or so passed and I decided to hobble down to the kitchen. As I walked in, a group of my mates started laughing and clapping. “Here’s the star of the night! Welcome back to the land of the living!”

Apparently, I had made a shamefully famous arse of myself the night before. Apart from fighting with my closest mate and calling her a bitch for taking my drink, I had stripped down to my underwear and jumped into the lake with one of our other intoxicated mates (the acrobatic one). The entire party thought it was quite the entertaining spectacle. Fantastic! At least that explained the sand up my arse. They took me to MacDonald’s to try and sober me up a bit – as I could barely walk on my own. I almost instantly barfed up my meal into the bushes. Then we had to run and catch the last train home, to which I fell and sprained my ankle before almost getting killed by the train! The only thing they couldn’t help me with was this bizarre Frog Prince detail – was it a total fabrication of my inebriated imagination? I was sure I made out with some guy that night, but who he was, and why the hell I called him the Frog Prince was way beyond me.

I felt so ashamed that my friends had to take so much care of me that night. I must have apologised that morning at least a dozen times to each of my mates. I didn’t drink again for a long time after that, and even when I did, I NEVER let myself get that bad again. I could have gotten myself killed that night – 3 times actually! Once, by alcohol poisoning... twice from swimming drunk... and thirdly from the train. I was a very, very lucky stupid girl.

2 years later I was reminiscing about this night with my acrobatic mate, who had since come out of the closet, flaming and fabulous! He looked way better than me in a mini-skirt – it totally wasn’t fair. Anyway, I mentioned the Frog Prince part and he got this weird look on his face. While looking at the floor and avoiding eye contact, he asked me, “You seriously don’t remember who the guy was?”

“Seriously? No! If I did know, I would have told you!”

He turned a light shade of pink, looked up at me and replied, “RIBBIT!”