Day Thirty-nine
I’ve never really been a ‘morning person’ and, to be honest, I’m not very fond of ‘morning people’; the types who leave parties early so they can wake up at 6.30am to energetically jump up and down proudly declaring ‘Good Morning!!!’ to the world to the absolute annoyance of all us night owls – I’m possibly just a little jealous that, unlike me, they haven’t slept most their life away.
My friend Jasmine had told me about an unusual event called Morning Glory, which is not a male dayspring adjustment in one’s pyjama bottoms, but a sober early morning rave party for workers before they hit the office. We both booked tickets for it a month in advance (it’s surprisingly popular) and I was excited yet also concerned, as I love a rave but hate getting out of bed.
Unfortunately the timing of my never done before experience was rather poorly planned as my previous day’s activity was to arrange a ‘piss-up in a brewery’ and pissed-up we certainly got. I had to be at Morning Glory at 6.30am, an hour’s journey from my house. I don’t really remember going to bed, or indeed setting an alarm clock, but somehow I woke at 5.30am and headed straight out the door.
At first, I wasn’t hung-over, in fact I was still completely smashed from the night before and ‘up for it’ thanks to that deceiving inner voice that says “I don’t feel drunk at all, actually I’ve never felt better in my entire life”, of course twenty minutes later, as always, that inner confidence dramatic diminished and the world’s biggest hangover kicked in. I was stuck on a commuter train heading to a morning rave with a load of well rested city workers – things were not looking good.
When my train arrived at my destination, I discovered I’d accidentally entered the venue’s details into Apple Maps on my IPhone rather than Google Maps. Apple Maps annoying upheld its reputation of being rubbish by guiding me to completely the wrong place. I had to walk for thirty minutes in the freezing cold and, as I’d left my home with such drunken urgency, I was wearing hardly any clothes.
I finally got through to Jasmine, who’d not been answering her phone, to be informed she was still in bed, had overslept and wasn’t coming. I was actually a little relieved by this, I was close to being sick, so I was happy to turn around and head back home, but annoyingly I then reminded myself that not attending the rave would be contrary to my personal yearlong challenge I was attempting; it’s at that point I started to hate myself a little.
It was quite an unusual experience arriving at Morning Glory. There were entrance barriers outside, Bouncers on the door and the sound of vibrating windows from the loud music inside the warehouse type building. It looked like a normal club set-up, only all the revellers were sober and had just got out of bed. The crowd looked more like young trendy bohemian types than the city workers I was expecting. A lot of them were wearing pyjamas or onesies and either had painted their faces or were covered in a lot of glitter, bizarrely I felt a little overdressed.
Once I got past the entrance barriers and opened the door to the club, I was greeted by a woman who proudly declared “Good Morning!!!”, so I responded by saying “Morning” back, but as my hangover stepped up another notch the feeling in my head towards her was slightly less jovial. She said to me “I would give you a hug, but I’ve hugged so many people this morning”. I suddenly become paranoid as it dawned on me the real reason she wouldn’t hug me was because I still stunk of booze and looked remarkably like a tramp.
I thought perhaps I’d survive the whole thing by finding a dark corner in the club and just bop gently to the music on my own, however it didn’t quite work like that. When I entered I discovered the brightest lit club in the world, a smoothie bar and lots of jolly ‘morning types’ jumping up and down. I took a ‘selfie’ to prove I’d been there, if only for thirty seconds, and then left to catch the morning rush hour train home.
In conclusion: if you organise a piss-up in a brewery, then make sure you organise the next day properly too.
I have never... 