We all come into college fearing that we won’t make a single friend our freshman year. So I patted myself on the back when I found a group of girlfriends that I fit in with right away. But I realized that these were new friends and could change their mind about me at any minute with no remorse, so I was always sure to be on my best behavior.

One night, we had all gone to dinner at our on-campus bar and restaurant. We were with a few older guys and they were sneaking us beer after beer, and it wasn’t long before I realized that I was three sheets (and 6 beers) to the wind. Doing my best to hold my ground and act like I wasn’t starting to feel that buffalo chicken sandwich churning in my stomach, my friends were surprised when I asked them to accompany me to the bathroom with a look of urgency in my eyes.

Three of us gathered around the tiny stall as I proceeded to barf up my entire meal and then some. They followed the standard friend protocol, holding my hair back and rubbing my back. Little did they know what they were about to witness.

I had flushed the toilet for a final time, and my friends breathed a sigh of relief, hoping the worst was over. My one friend was about to run back to the restaurant and get me a glass of water but was stopped dead in her tracks when she saw my next drunken move. Without a second thought, I had scooped my hand into the toilet bowl and begun cupping the water into my mouth. Yes, I was chugging toilet water.

They all started gagging and screaming at me to stop, but I insisted that it was OK because: “I do this all time. All my friends drink from the toilet at home!” So they let me quench my thirst right there at the porcelain toilet, cleaned me up and took me home.

The next morning, they replayed the entire scenario for me as I was a little hazy on the night’s events. I was appalled. Sadly enough, I have no idea why I said I drink toilet water all the time. To the best of my knowledge, I stick pretty religiously to the Brita and have never desired a cold glass of fresh toilet bowl water.

So on that fateful morning, I not only had to fear that my newfound friends were going to erase my number from their phonebooks, but I also had to face facts that there’s a possibility I have been drinking from the toilet while blacked-out for years now. Devastating.