Now You Tell Me

I dropped a link to a Fast Company story about American drinking and hangover habits into the drafts folder several months ago, figuring it'd be a decent filler at some point. Now, as I finally get back to it and actually read the story, I'm kicking myself. It would've been really helpful had I read it two days ago.

A company called Blowfish markets what they purport to be the most effective hangover cure on the market. In their words, 

Blowfish is a lemon-flavored fizzy tablet that will stop the pounding in your hungover head faster than you can imagine. It’s the only hangover product with a formulation recognized as effective by the FDA (which is kind of a big deal). Doctors use it. Bartenders swear by it. And we guarantee it’s the best remedy out there – so you’ve got absolutely nothing to lose by trying it (except, you know, your hangover).

I started drinking at around 1:00 p.m. yesterday, on a postcard perfect fall afternoon in Williamsburg. I stopped sometime around 2:00 in the morning, though the details are a bit fuzzy. Clarence claims he saw me and another of our friends struggling to get into our hotel room at around that time, which sounds odd to me, as I think I remember leaving him with some other friends in an entirely different hotel room.

Either way, my 7:00 a.m. wakeup call this morning found me somewhere between groggy and abjectly addled. You all know the symptoms, so I'll spare the litany, but this hangover had (still has, really) representation from the entire catalogue. An effervescent assist would've been blessed.

According to Blowfish's research, aptly named Intoxication Nation, Virginia is the 34th-most hungover state in the Union. However, the District of Columbia clocks in at the top of the charts, the single most-hungover jurisdiction in all the land. And since there are large parts of the Old Dominion that considers Northern Virginia essentially an extension of D.C., I feel it appropriate to claim residency in our Nation's Capital, at least for this express purpose. I've certainly lived up (down) to it today.