I have been in a relationship for an undisclosed amount of years. It began way before college and I am entering my senior year, so you do the math. The point is: my sloppy nights have never resulted in a stranger’s face in my bed the next morning. Lucky? Probably. Boring? Maybe to some people. Safe? Most def.

I have never dealt with a disease scare or the overall fright that comes with waking up in an unfamiliar location with someone you never remember meeting. That’s not to say that I haven’t had my share of embarrassing moments. Or mornings when I looked in the mirror and asked, “What the hell is wrong with you?”

Only a recent graduate of the underage club, the majority of my nights out have consisted of shimmying up my skirt to woo a bouncer, or settling for a dive bar in the middle of nowhere. On this particular night, I believe it was a Tuesday – a night when I shouldn’t have been out in the first place since I had class the next morning -  the former had not worked out and so we ended up at the latter, which in this case was a very tiny, very sketchy, Mexican food place on the Lower East Side.

We had heard that they didn’t card, which they did not. I was so excited, I got my party on. Hardcore. Three pitchers of margaritas later, I am told by friends, I was rolling on the floor yelling obscenities…in an almost empty, dive restaurant….on a Tuesday night. If this isn’t the definition of pitiful, I don’t know what is.

But the worse was yet to come. All three of my friends puked on the way home. On a crowded subway. All over themselves and each other and me. Someone’s purse ended up a trashcan and one of us had to get our coat dry-cleaned the next day under the alibi that our “little brother” had the flu.

The next morning, I could only remember fragments of the night, which, luckily, prevented me from feeling much embarrassment. I would never see any of those people again, so what happened happened.

That is until I flipped on my laptop and signed into Facebook where I was attacked by 200 pictures of myself…. on the toilet.

What could have possibly ran through my mind at this point in the night is beyond me. “Oh, I am very drunk, and at a Mexican joint. Why don’t I go into the bathroom and have a photo shoot? Great!”

There was me on the toilet, skirt down around my knees. In the sink. On the ground (ew). Kissing the paper towel dispenser. My friends periodically came and went. There I was hugging one, biting the necklace of another (wtf?!), oh and there we are  in the mirror.

By the time I had awoken from my still drunken/pounding headache slumber, cleaned puke off the kitchen floor, and finally sat down at the computer, the album had had countless views, and comments- mostly jokes at my expense. No matter how quickly I untagged them, the damage had already been done.

Oh, and when I returned to the Mexican place a week later, they remembered me as the “bathroom girl” and asked me to leave. And I did, with my head hung in shame.

1. The Full House Remake

You weren’t a child of the ’90s unless you watched “Full House” (and if you didn’t, you seriously missed out on some major TGIF action). You knew the Tanner family. You still catch reruns when you stumble upon them flipping through the channels. You pause, you catch a Kimmy Gibbler cameo and laugh, and you remember how things were. And that’s how it should be. Now that John “Uncle Jesse” Stamos is proposing a Full House remake show, all our classic memories may be tainted. Seeing the aged DJ and Steph and the rest of the gang is just going to make me feel like an old fart. And the next thing you know, people are going to start making covers of good ’90s songs, and I’m going to start thinking to myself, “the original ‘Quit Playin Games With My Heart’ was so much better,” and then I will have turned into my mother, and this can’t happen during my 20s.

2. The Obama Citizenship Scandal

I don’t quite follow why this is happening (for all practical purposes, the presidential transition is already underway, and the last thing this country needs is more divisive action), but someone is suing Barack Obama, disputing his US citizenship and thus his claim to the presidency. For the record, Obama was born on August 4, 1961 in Hawaii, which became a member of the Union in 1959. Now what’s the problem? (And let’s not forget that former-rival John McCain was born in Panama on US-zoned territory).

3. Being Born In December

My 21st birthday was this week. That’s right- no more of those nasty “underage” check marks on my hands when I go to concerts, no more ugly red print on my driver’s license and, oh yeah, I can go where I want, whenever I want! Ballin’! Except, there was no proper way for me to celebrate this momentous occasion because (uuugh) I just so happened to have entered the world during the worst week on the calendar: the last week of classes. My time management skills aside, I still have a buttload of reading to do, and all of my friends are handcuffed to their laptops writing end-of-semester papers. So even if I was truly free-as-a-bird, my list of drinking buddies was nil. I guess the only sobering (ha!) wisdom I accrued with this coming of age was that your rights don’t come without responsibilities. Hmph.

4. Ungrateful Bosses

This didn’t happen to me, but I am equally as pissed about it: my roommate, who is a senior applying to graduate school at the moment, recently asked her boss for a recommendation letter. She has worked for years at the same campus job, which is relevant to her career interests and graduate studies. But her boss refused to write her a letter, simply because she wasn’t available to work during a particularly busy time of year. First of all, she is a student, and she took a campus job with the mutual understanding between herself and her employer that her studies came first. Second of all, she has worked there all throughout her undergraduate career, and shouldn’t her loyalty count for something? And third of all, why is it so difficult for this man, who has known my roommate for three years, to write her a one-page recommendation? For Pete’s sake, she just wants to go to grad school, and she’s been doing b*tch work for years to get there. Help a sista out.

5. Snow

I love it, really I do, just not when I am trying to walk home from the bar in my cutest pair of flats.

Has anything similar to the above happened to you/pissed you off? What’s eating you this week? Seriously ladies, let it out – mama’s here for you!

5. A lost wallet and/or clutch. This is particularly disturbing because it is usually the first thing that hits you in the morning, well before you’ve had any time to nurse the hangover you earned. It feels very similar to being on a deserted island that smells strongly of vodka and lime. You are cell-less, cutting off contact with the outside world. With credit card whereabouts unknown and no proof of identity, you are left defenseless against fraud. If you are underage, there is the heavy burden of finding a new fake i.d. The brand new lip gloss and powder from MAC that you inevitably JUST bought are gone forever. Worst of all, your dear, loyal, and perfectly fashionable clutch will never be wedged into your armpit for pictures or table dancing ever again. R.I.P. Limited edition Coach Python and Boucle clutch. You will be missed.

4. The guy you went home with. Okay, last night this guy was h-o-t! He was witty and charming and so attentive to your needs; not once did he let you have an empty glass! Whether you met him at the pre-party, the bar, or on the way home (never a good sign), this dude – who seemed like a great idea at the time – is now nothing more than a big (or worse, tiny) mistake. Often, this error in judgment will use trickery and promises of rides on his family’s yacht to get you home with him, but come morning all he can offer is a ride home…if you’re lucky. High-tail it out of there and head to the nearest health clinic to make sure all he has given you is a bad memory.

3. Bar-Dancing Induced Injury. An injury caused in part by your favorite jam is highly unsettling; it feels like betrayal. Unfortunately, though, being hammered enough to hop on the bar and shake your shiz with the shot girls is begging for disaster. One minute you’re on top of the world (bartop) doing the drunk girl dance; the next, you are falling in slow motion into a sea of A/X clad gentlemen. While that group of guys was immobile for the last 5 minutes trying to look up your skirt, they have swiftly parted, allowing you to fall directly onto the floor. So much for chivalry. The only up-side to this drunk-tastrophe is when the bar staff take pity on you and set you with straight shots of Ketel One.

(Note: This mishap will always occur a day or two before a major event (like graduation) where you will then be forced to explain your injury to your grandparents.)

2. Hitchhiking. Only the biggest and baddest of theme parties (and the most alcoholic hunch punch) can inspire such stupidity. The problem with being both extremely intoxicated and too impatient to wait for a cab is that it often results in severe underestimation of distances, which can lead to the (incorrect) assumption that everywhere is within walking distance. While you saw nothing wrong with stumbling down a busy street’s sidewalk dressed in lingerie, angel wings and 4 inch pumps on a 38 degree evening, a kindhearted stranger did. He rolled down his window and had you at “Um, are you okay? Can I take you somewhere?” After hopping out of his car and wastedly thanking him (and God for letting you make it out alive), he sped off into the night with your angel wings.

1. Getting Arrested. While it seemed completely appropriate to hit on the hot young cop outside of the bar last night, this morning all that attraction has turned to regret. Despite his insistence that he was working, and that you should probably run along to the nearest Taco Bell and head home, you couldn’t resist to ask “Why, is there a plobrem occifer?” Cue his disgruntled and older partner to walk over, demand I.D. and arrests you for being drunk in public. Those hilarious comments about “ASS-aulting an officer” and your demands to have “Officer McChiseled-Abs” cuff you instead probably didn’t help your case, either. Use your one phone call wisely, because if you call your still-groggy girlfriends in the morning, they will most likely be laughing to0 hard to take you seriously.

Dear America,

Are you a pedophile? If you could just admit that you are one, then I would at least understand your sick obsession with underage Hollywood girls and their bodies. But since you’re going to pretend like the way you view bodies and sex is normal, I have no choice but to be angry.

Miley Cyrus is supposed to feel badly about the pictures she’s recently taken. One set of pictures features her in her underwear. Another set features her showing her…her…disgustingly inappropriate…BACK.

So what if the girl took some pictures of herself in her underwear? How is that really any different from her going to the beach and having pictures taken of her in her bathing suit? Oh…let me guess…it’s about the context of it all. A girl showing her tummy and thighs when she’s NOT post-ocean and in public is out of line.

And so what if she was wearing a sheet in a photo shoot? Did her back and right arm really offend you or give your children nightmares?

From Vanessa Hudgens to Emma Watson, you have grown progressively more and more concerned with how short a teenager’s skirt is or how much leg she is showing. Please, just explain it to me. Explain to me your definitions of ‘appropriate’ and why you feel as though they should apply to everyone in this country.

Until you explain yourself to me, I’m just going to assume you’re a pedophile who gets turned on seeing Miley Cyrus’ back and then you feel guilty about it and scapegoat her into feeling like she did something wrong.

Oh, and I’m only wearing a towel right now. Send me to hell.

Sincerely,

Elizabeth

Well, Seventeen magazine and MySpace want to ease your worries (and make a profit from our current reality TV craze) by giving the world a “web based reality program” called Freshman 15.

“The magazine and MySpace will follow 15 girls in print and online through the demanding first year of college”, each one from a different and “diverse” background.

According to one source, every girl will have her own MySpace profile that will be frequently updated with clips, pictures and blogs—which makes me think the whole thing will be a lot more manufactured than the producers are letting on.

And having cameras follow you around sort of defeats the purpose of being completely real, doesn’t it? Shouldn’t these girls be focusing on school and not on whether or not they got a comment on MySpace?

How much you want to bet these girls pull a Lauren Conrad and drop out as soon as the show hits the air?

Either way, Freshman 15 will debut in the October issue of Seventeen magazine and run through May 2008.

…no word yet on who will be responsible when the first underage girl is recorded puking from one too many red plastic cups filled with “mystery punch”.

Reason 798 why the Internet creeps me out: (which is even weirder than reason 797: the government probably reading everything I’ve ever put on here), people not being who they say they are online.

Wired Magazine recently featured a story that is the mother of all mistaken Internet identity tales, and reads like some kind of psychotic Lifetime movie of the week. Stay with me now.

Thomas Montgomery, a 45-year-old husband of 16 years and father of two teenage girls was living a pretty uneventful life in upstate New York. After spending 12 years at the same boring job, something inside Montgomery must have snapped, causing the man to live a monotonous life no more—at least in cyberspace. Deciding to log onto the game and chat site Pogo.com as a “19-year-old marine” named Tommy who was getting ready to ship out to Iraq, stood 6 feet tall, and had a “9 inch dick”, Montgomery set out to live a double life.

And live it he did, once he began talking to a 16-year-old girl from Virginia named Jessi. Jessi fell in love with Montgomery’s Tommy, talking to him for hours at night and sending him G-strings in the mail.

Sometimes, just to shake things up, Montgomery would pretend to be Tommy’s father, admonishing Jessi for making mistakes in the relationship.

Eight months after instant messaging every day and speaking on the phone, Tommy proposed to Jessi. Jessi accepted. In a bizarre New Year’s Eve resolution, Montgomery wrote “On January 2, 2006, Tom Montgomery (46 years old) ceases to exist and is replaced by an 18-year-old battle-scarred marine”.

But the only thing that really happened was Montgomery’s wife finding his secret stash of G-strings and realizing her husband was cyber cheating with a girl as old as his daughter. Being a mother, and a sane individual, Montgomery’s wife contacted Jessi and let her know Tommy didn’t exist.

Distraught, Jessi contacted a friend of Montgomery’s who also frequented Pogo.com, 22-year-old Brian Barrett, and asked him if Tommy was indeed a fake. Barret told her he was. A disappointed Jessi began messaging Barret in place of Tommy, and the two began their own online relationship.

A relationship Montgomery found out about. A relationship that pissed the delusional father of two off so much he (allegedly) followed Barret to work and shot him three times.

When Jessi was contacted about the crime, her mother answered for her, saying her daughter wasn’t around. But as cops pushed, they noticed something odd about Jessi’s mother. She acted strangely, nervous, like she knew something.

Turns out, Jessi’s mom, was Jessi.

The icing on this freaking weird cake, Jessi didn’t exist at all. Jessi was really a housewife named Mary, using her daughter’s profile.

I couldn’t make this shit up if I tried.

…And I don’t think I’d ever want to.

So, I got a fake ID. I was lucky enough to inherit an actual old ID of a friend’s after she turned 21. While my friend and I look alike, she is 25 and 5’9. And yet, her ID has worked flawlessly time and time again, even when I don’t wear my seven – inch heels. How does it work, you ask? I follow a few basic steps:

The most important thing when using a fake is to have confidence. Exude it. Embody your fake ID. Relinquish your real identity and go with the card. If it says you’re 5’9 and you’re really 5’3, be 5’9 in spirit. My dad always said, “if you act tall, you are tall.” Apparently that adage rings true for getting into bars, among other things.

Also, travel as lightly as possible. I don’t mean that you should carry a clutch (which you should anyway), just avoid traveling in a large group. Alone or with one or two friends, you’re much less offensive to a bouncer.

It always helps if you’re a girl in the first place, but be a girl – boy scout. Have your fake at the ready. Don’t be afraid to look the bouncer in the eye. Be sincere with your false identity. Smile, nod, say thank you, step aside. And what to do if they take your ID? First of all, if you worry about them taking it, they probably will. So don’t even think about it. But if they do, let it go. It wasn’t meant to be.

Lastly, share the wealth. Once you cross the threshold into legality, pass your ID down to someone less fortunate, along with these guidelines to proliferate good times for all.