Pace yourself when sipping your first glass of $7 Sauvignon Blanc at happy hour on Friday. Perhaps chug some water between your first and second glass. Take note that everyone around you is munching on half-price oysters, sliders and sushi and you’re not. Eat something.

Take the subway instead of a cab to your apartment so you realize how tipsy you already are. Perhaps pick up on the fact that the vodka drink isn’t necessary in order to re-do your make-up. Don’t believe it when you tell yourself that the benefits of the coconut water are rehydrating you while the vodka dehydrates you.

At dinner, let someone else suggest ordering a bottle of sake for the table. Don’t pick the 19 proof brand sake that’s in a tin bottle resembling a diesel gas can. Or perhaps don’t wash down the sake with a vodka soda. Realize there’s no need to order another bottle of sake to celebrate a fifth friend joining the table. Eat the rice that came with your salmon teriyaki because you do, in fact, need the additional carbs.

When you go home to drop off your friend’s stuff, reconsider before mixing more vodka coconut cocktails. Avoid awaiting the arrival of your coworker and his two friends. Perhaps consider sending them away. Instead of trying to cover up how drunk you already are, own up to how drunk you already are.

Don’t leave your friend at home when she falls asleep on the couch. Instead, stay home with her. Talk yourself into going to sleep. Stop and think – do you really need to barhop with your coworker, et al? Don’t drink that dark and stormy. Demand to go home when you feel the first wave of nausea. Go to your apartment and lay down in your roommate’s abandoned bed. Don’t scoot over to make room for your coworker. Don’t invite his friend to join you because you think you’re a nice person. You’re just drunk. Don’t initiate a conversation about a threesome because it’s not cute or ladylike. Don’t pass out without changing your clothes, without washing your face, without brushing your teeth or without taking out your contact lenses.

Wake up and drink water. Take out your contact lenses when you wash face. Don’t ignore the dryness in your eyes while you’re stuffing your face with a two-serving, fried chicken cemita sandwich in 10 minutes. Consider applying the eye drops that are in your purse. Don’t rub your eyes when it dawns on you that haven’t taken out your contacts in two days.

When you leave the Brooklyn Brewery to go home for a nap, actually get your ass off the couch and remove your contacts instead of just thinking about doing it as you drift off to sleep. Don’t just brush off the concern that arises when you awake with tears streaming out of your right eye.
Don’t assume it’s just your allergies acting up. Take out your contacts, put in eye drops and fresh lenses. Pop some ibuprofen and allergy medicine. Re-do your make-up and join your friends for pork belly and fried fish tacos. Take it seriously when your friends show concern that you may have pink eye. Decide that your eye really does fucking hurt – but only when you blink. Go home.

Don’t think ibuprofen will solve the problem that has overtaken your eye that is now red, swollen and full of mucous. Don’t pop more ibuprofen. Or Allegra. Or Benadryl for good measure. Call your mom. Put a bag of ice on your face. Call your mom again. Your eye is red and weepy and swollen? You have an eye laceration. Leave immediately when she tells you to go to the doctor.

Accept that you must leave your friends before brunch to go to Urgent Care. Describe your symptoms honestly. Don’t act surprised when your dyed eyes reveal lacerations under the UV light. Feel badly that there are not one, not two, but three cuts. Accept the prescription for eye drops and ointment. Don’t freak out that you can’t wear contact lenses or eye make-up for one week. Instead, accept responsibility.

Walk immediately to the pharmacist. Remember eyeglasses aren’t sunglasses and people can see you looking at them. Buy coconut water and Gatorade. Go home, take off your glasses and let your right eye cry itself to sleep.