Many years ago, I had to fly from Atlanta back home, with a red-eye flight at midnight.

I normally can’t sleep on planes, but I did have lounge access and the lounge offered unlimited whiskey shots, and it’s not like I had to work the next day, so my brilliant idea was that I would get drunk enough so that I could sleep on the plane.

By 11:45pm I am pretty toasted, so I make my way to the gate. About a minute after I arrive, they make an announcement that my flight has been delayed nine hours, so not until 9am the next morning. So here I am, with a backpack, getting progressively drunker as more alcohol is being digested in my gut, and having no idea what to do for the next nine hours.

All the lounges were closed, and I was uncomfortable sleeping in public because I was afraid someone would steal my laptop out of my bag, so for the next nine hours, I drunkenly cabotaged the entire Atlanta airport I don’t know how many times. I would walk around one terminal, then get on the little underground train and do it again, repeated for the next nine hours, with a 45 minute break to puke.

I don’t drink at all anymore and that event is a not-insignificant reason as to why.