The time I got black out drunk at a Backstreet Boys concert.

I’m not always the flawless goddess I make myself out to be on here. Sometimes I fall from grace like an angel. Very rarely, but occasionally it happens. It actually happens probably once a day but as time goes on I have grown to be less horribly embarrassed about my constant jackassery and social mishaps and have adopted the attitude of “if they can’t take a joke fuck ’em” It has gotten me this far so I don’t see a reason to give up the dream. I’m going to tell you guys about my most embarrassing moment today in the hope that you will take me down from that golden, jewel encrusted pedestal you have placed me on and think of me as an equal and less of a demigod.

pictured: yours truly helping some ugly orphans cross a bridge. Losers.

The title really says it all. I went to a Backstreet Boys concert and got totally smashed. I went with a girl I used to be friends with, whether or not the concert was the dissolution of our friendship is up for questioning, but it very well could have been since I acted like a total spaz. I was 20 so much like most 20 year olds I was an idiot and couldn’t hold my booze very well. This problem, coupled with my inability to act sane in social situations made for a very horrible night.

We showed up at the concert all excited to relive our childhood spent idolizing a group of men, despite the fact that at least 3 of them you wouldn’t give a second glance to if you saw them on the street. Anyways we had a few drinks beforehand but then something went horribly wrong. This something was in the form of a drunk mom in her 40s who was chaperoning her teenage daughters and who obviously was a social pariah. She saddled up next to us and asked if we wanted a drink. I, being poor as all hell, jumped at the chance to drink coolers with a strange woman for free. This is where I went wrong. I was used to drinking whiskey and coke so when I drank a fruit flavoured cooler I was like “THIS IS JUST LIKE JUICE!” I would go on to actually scream this out more than once during the night. So this drunk woman supplied us with about 4 of these puppies each and then wandered off to do god knows what.

At this point I’m standing there wobbling and holding three cups so I was obviously prime hit on material. Some guy walked by wearing an Evil Dead shirt so I yelled at him that he was awesome. This is constantly my downfall. I will see some guy wearing something I like or doing something funny and I’ll tell them that they’re awesome. They take this as I am flirting with them but I actually am just commenting. I blame the fact that I hang out with tons of guys who constantly forget I’m a a girl so in turn I forget I’m a girl and in my mind I’m just giving a fellow bro some props on his novelty Evil Dead shirt.

Anyways this clown and his friend come over and start aggressively hitting on us. In hindsight this was a perfect plan on their part: go to a Backstreet boys concert that is sure to contain at least 30% girls in their 20’s and of that 30% at least 10% are single and there with their friends, and at least 5% of those are insane superfans who will get themselves all worked up and go home with anyone who has a haircut similar to Nick Carter. It’s genius.

they totally got the idea from this guy! You're a perv, Stephen!

So they’re asking us if we want to go party with them after the show and I instantly panicked. I panicked because I had just started dating Matt, the boyfriend I mention occasionally usually in the context of him often rolling his eyes or telling me to stop being such an idiot. We were like a month or two into our relationship and he hadn’t yet been exposed to the maximum level of my nerdiness. He has now and I think he has somewhat accepted it because the other day he bought me a Sci Fi magazine from 1974 and I nearly wept with joy. It had an ad for a watch that you could play a little Wrath of Kahn game on you guys. We were still new in the relationship but I had already tested the waters with various Star Wars quotes and admitting my love for Fox Mulder, so things were going in my favour. I didn’t want to mess it up by having this goon date rape me or something. So I did something that in hindsight was the worst idea ever. I went to the bathroom and drunkenly called Matt. I cringe at the memory of it because I was at that moment the girl everyone hates that’s always in a bathroom stall at the bar crying on the phone.

"ahhh I'm so drunk......WHY WON'T JOSH SLEEP WITH ME??"

He regretfully answered the phone and he was hanging out with some friends of his which made it so so much worse. I have a super loud voice normally and on top of that I was yelling because the opening act had started playing by now in the background, so I know everyone heard. I said something about how I was really drunk and some guys were hitting on me and I wanted to come home. At the time I thought Matt would hear this and think “Wow, what a responsible, trustworthy girlfriend I have, she’s telling me that some people are hitting on her and she wants to come home and be with me because she loves me and not those guys” in reality I’m guessing his train of thought went something like this “oh my god why is she yelling? why is she drunk and hanging out with random guys? Oh my god I’m so mad/worried/annoyed” Matt has several good character traits but my favorite and the one that comes in handy the most is that he can hide his annoyance with me. I’m kind of making him out to be a dick but he’s really not, and I swear deep down inside he loves my geeky nature but sometimes, not so much. I assume he wanted to ream me out but instead he just sort of said that I should stop drinking, have some water and try to relax.

I wandered back to the concert after my friend came and got me from the bathroom. When we returned to our seats the goon and his friends were gone, I assume onto more desperate, greener pastures.  The backstreet boys finally took the stage and I was so excited I had to go vomit. I spent the first 3 songs of the set in the bathroom puking. I remember specifically leaning my head on the wall of the stall humming along to Quit playin’ games with my heart. It was seriously the worst night ever.

"...before you tear us apart.." HORF HORF

It got worse. I called Matt AGAIN to tell him that I was still really drunk and on top of that I had just barfed several times. Again he told me to calm down and also to stop calling him. After round 5 of puking I told my friend I had to leave and made her leave the concert. I also cringe at this because I still feel so guilty for ruining her night. I have been the sober, or sober-ish friend in a situation like that since then and I tried not to hold it against my friend because I know what they’re going through, it sucks but you need to look out for your friends and I wasn’t about to ride the skytrain back to my cousins house where we were staying on my own. So we left the concert and to be honest I don’t really remember much after that.

The morning after I talked to my friend Adam who were supposed to meet up with after the concert. He had a nice little voicemail on his phone from me that essentially went like this:

“Adam…It’s Rigs…I’m too drunk….I RUINED EVERYTHING”

Possibly the best voicemail in recent history

"...now I'm going to call my boss and tell him how sexy he is!"

Luckily the next day I woke up with not that bad of a hangover, I collected my belongings and what little dignity I had left, said goodbye to my cousin and prepared myself for an angry car ride back home. Luckily I slept through most of it but unfortunately I spent the other half of the ride either throwing up or talking myself out of throwing up. It was a real test of will.

Months later Matt and I were at a mountain bike movie premiere because those are the sort of glamorous events you take part in when you’re dating a professional mountain biker. So I’m doing my usual routine of drinking while everyone else discusses bike parts, riders and companies that I’m clueless about.Then this guy comes up to me. He introduces himself and I introduce myself. He was silent for a few seconds and then said “oh so you’re Matt’s girlfriend Rigby…the one that was drunk at the Backstreet Boys concert, right?” I froze like a deer in the headlights. How could I get out of this?? I thought for a second of saying that was his old girlfriend and I’m the new one, which would have been possible to pull off if my name was Sarah or something, but what are the odds of dating two girls back to back both named Rigby? next to impossible. I cursed my parents silently for giving me such a name. In the end I decided to just own it and work it like the fierce bitch I am(??) I smiled up at him and gave my best Julia Roberts laugh. “That’s me!” I said while laughing and sort of doing a weird shrug/eye roll as if to tell him “oh it was no big deal, I’m a cool girl who can laugh at herself!” but I think it came off as more of a neck twitch. He just sort of nodded and glanced down at the drink at my hand and said he would see me later.

So I was left standing next to the bar with a screwdriver in my hand wondering where my life went wrong. My life was in shambles and apparently I was going to be known as “Matt’s girlfriend who got drunk at the Backstreet Boys concert” for the rest of it. Right then and there I decided I was going to be more serious and mature, I would go buy a bunch of books on etiquette and put some money in stocks or something. I was going to be wonderful!

pictured: me at my 23th birthday party

Obviously somewhere along the line something went wrong because here I am 5 years later. I have since gotten drunk at the Vancouver Aquarium in the middle of the day, fallen up the stairs at a movie theater, dropped my purse down the stairs of a busy restaurant and in doing so exposing the 5 or 6 tampons I had in there, run over a printer from the 80’s, thrown up in my friends shower after a night of drinking, eaten a KFC Double Down, and of course my greatest debaucherous adventure: started this blog. So am I a better person now, more adult? I like to think I am because sometimes I say “how about this weather?” to my co workers and I wear skirts to work, but then sometimes I eat a bowl of alphagettis for dinner. I guess the real test would be to go back to the scene of the crime and get drunk at another Backstreet Boys concert. And as I strolled out at the end of that concert I could say to myself, “you did it Rigby, you are grown up” one day I hope to be that person. One day.