There’s something magical about seeing the sun rise after a night out. It could be the fresh morning air or the more likely fact that your blood alcohol content looks like a phone number, but there’s an undeniable charm about an early morning after an evening of debauchery. With a heavy heart and a lighter wallet, the time has come to embark on the inevitable pilgrimage home.
Opening the club door is a lot like exiting the womb: it’s bright, confusing and there’s a terrifyingly huge man glaring at you. A sort of primal urge kicks in as soon as you leave the sin-filled, extortionately over-priced, sweaty paradise that is the Australian Nightclub. Food, water, shelter. Those three words bounce around your head like a 12-year-old with ADHD. Seeing as the bouncer has the look of someone who’s been dealing with drunk fuckwits for 7 hours, it becomes apparent that he will be of little help in your quest to satisfy basic human needs.
Sniffing out food like a ravenous dog, you make your way down the streets looking like a sort of sesh vampire that’s never seen sunlight before. You’ll often pass people that are going for a morning run or maybe cycling. These two vastly different lifestyles are revealed to one another and both parties seem to believes that the other isn’t living life to its fullest. While they might be able to jog more than 50 meters and blend green shit together, you drink vodka lime sodas as a way to combat scurvy, so it really does even out.
Disregarding the fact that you spent the next two week’s food budget on severely under-poured sugar-packed drinks and pills that probably contain some bizarre chemical found in rocket fuel, you eagerly search for some nourishment. Stumbling down the street like a zombie with the intention of eating something containing grease and some sort of meat substitute can only lead you to one place, the mecca that is Maccas.
The line of a McDonalds at 6 am on a Sunday morning is a mixed bag. From hospitality workers who give you dirty looks because you took 10 minutes to pay, to shifty dudes decked out in head to toe Stussy, there’s a little of everything at this time. Cashiers don’t even pretend to put up with your shit, staring at you with the dead eyes of someone that actually knows what goes in a Big Mac, they take your order. Inevitably, you order something shit and greasy that you never end up finishing and begin to wonder how you’re actually going to make it home.
Thankfully, the 21st century has brought about a multitude of technological advancements, most notably Uber, for when you need to get your drunk ass home. After the desperate search for a place to get picked up and the slight worry over your driver who looks like he could be on some sort of list, you’re on your way home. The driver looks at you questioningly and asks “Good Night?” and all you need to say is “Yeah, pretty good.”
Written by Ethan Gould
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