The Drunk Dialing Sisters of Bundaberg

There’s something almost old-fashioned about Drunk Dialing someone. I imagine there are actually 18 year olds who have never even done it – they probably Drunk Tweet. Actually, given some of the crap that pops up on Twitter, I wouldn’t be surprised if a large percentage of its users are tweeting under the influence. But drunk dialing, remember when that used to be the way to embarrass yourself?

Of course, like so many other self-inflicted forms of harm, there’s an App for that now. If you know you intend to have a big night, you use this App to remove certain contacts from you phone book for 24 hours. The numbers of people you secretly love, or people you know secrets about, or people who really need to hear just what you think of them.

But even an App can’t fight nature, and/or a determined drunk. I once heard a friend who used this App whilst inebriated was so eager to call an old flame that she simply pulled out ancient phone bills and starting trying numbers till she found the right one.

It’s a dangerous business. Only recently some colleagues drunk-dialed every senior member of our workplace and left singing phone messages. Why did they sing Happy Birthday to our boss? Who needed to hear We Wish You A Merry Christmas? And perhaps most bizarrely, how on earth did the soundtrack of Grease come into the picture?

I have a fail-safe habit I have formed to combat all drunk dialing tendencies. I think of the one person that can’t dis-own me, judge me or hold against me anything I say at some strange hour of the night. I imagine the one person who is almost guaranteed to have a phone nearby, won’t promptly call the cops on me and cannot fire me. Then I ring Mother Painefull.

Mother Painefull is always relatively good-humoured about these calls. Probably because she’s just relieved it’s a sign I’m being social at all. It’s quite possible a part of her thinks (through the haze of the sleep I have just woken her from) ‘well it’s good to know she gets out, for a period of time I suspected I had bred a hermit’.

But Mother Painefull, mythical powers of prediction, stunning accuracy in spotting future frenemies at 20 paces and unfortunate habit of buying me clothes I will never wear aside, is also merely human. Which, I imagine, is why Mother Painefull returned the drunk dialing favour just the other day. From Bundaberg. With her 3 sisters.

The drunk dialing sisters of Bundaberg.

They each took a turn to declare to me they were the only sober one in the room, then offer a random observation of what was going on.

Mother Painefull: Painefull, I haven’t had much to drink. Aunty F has her legs in the air.

Aunty F: Painefull, don’t listen to your mother. She’s had much more than I have. Now someone’s taking their clothes off.

Aunty J: Painefull, I think I must be the only sober one here (laughs hysterically). We’ve finished 2 bottles of Cointreau.

Aunty P: Painefull, I am the only responsible one here (giggles). I think we need another drink.

As the phone got passed around from mother-to-aunt-to-aunt-to-aunt-to-mother-back-to-aunt a part of me was relieved to discover even the older generation are keeping the drunk dialing skill alive.

Also, apparently it’s genetic.


Painefull Out