POOR LIFE CHOICES AND

HOW TO MAKE THEM

A Short Guide and Account of My Many Poor Life Choices

By: Paige Demoe

While making poor choices seems like a very easy thing to do, it isnt as
simple as it appears. But, dont worry; I am here to teach you all of the tips
and tricks behind poor life choices, as I recall some questionable choices Ive
made in recent years as a young adult.

Chapter I - Alcohol
To begin, were going to start with the topic of alcohol-related poor choices. While
this is a very broad category, Im going to try to zoom in on it a bit for you as I
remember one of the, almost countless, poor, alcohol-related, choices Ive made. I want
to first, clarify that I am NOT discouraging the use of alcoholits really a great creation
that can make anything fun and Id highly recommend it. In fact, Id recommend
drinking as much of it as you can, especially if youre underage! Which actually leads
perfectly into my first exampleconsuming a lot of alcohol.
Alcohol is a magical thing and consuming a lot of it can definitely help you forget
your problems for a few great hours. Making sure you black out can help a lot in the
case of trying to forget things. Now, instead of continuing on with a list of more reasons
you should get drunk, we are going to flash back to one of the most drunken nights of
my existence as a human. Note, I did not say THE drunkest, just one of them. Let me set
the scene for you. It was a cool, winter day in East Lansing, about a week before St.
Pattys day (I can remember the time frame so well because of the green beer I
regurgitated the next day, but more on that later) and a certain 19-year-old girl (me, Im
the girl Im talking about) was attending a gathering at her local business fraternity, in
which she was a pledge. This particular event was even being hosted by the pledges
and was beer Olympics themed. So as a pledge, I and my fellow pledges, had to assure
that there was copious amounts of alcohol present for the brotherhood and ourselves.
And there was. So the best way to make sure you get really drunk, is to start drinking
earlier than it seems necessary, which is precisely what I did. So as the night went on I
chose to consume a bountiful amount of alcohol, of many different varieties, including,
but not limited to: green beer, tequila, and vodka. As you may or may not have
guessed, that did, in fact, cause me to be very intoxicated. *DISCLAIMER:* as a fair
warning to my readers, the next small part of this tale may not be 100% accurate, as I
myself do not recall this portion of the evening but have had it re-told to me from
bystanders. This probably applies to any story related to alcohol for the rest of this book
as well. So anyway, after spending what I found to be an appropriate amount of time at
the house, I decided to make my way home via a DD, however when I arrived to my
dormitory, it became aware to me that I lost my purse and ID (another important part of
making poor choices: lose as much stuff as you can). So, (this part, specifically, I would
not say is that poor of a choice) as my intelligent drunken self, I stayed and talked to
the complete strangers, that were manning the check-in desk, for 10 minutes, preceded
to hug each of them, and they then permit me into the building. There was then the
struggle to get to my floor and into the room but those are small details. Next, although
Im not 100% sure that this happened on this exact night, I fell asleep with my head on

the toilet and my suite mates proceeded to enter the bathroom and go about their
business as though there was not a human being passed out on the toilet.
Now, if you are not aware, most of the beds in dormitories are lofted, and lack a
proper ladder, which can be very troublesome for the average belligerent student.
However on this particular night, I did manage to make it up the bed. Its after I got into
the bed it went downhill from there. While nobody is really sure exactly how it
happened, I managed to fall out of my lofted bed, proceed to break the
shelf connected to it, land on the ground, and drag myself onto our
unfathomably terrible futon. The next morning then proved to be
rather troublesome. First of all, I did not recall my fall from above and
attributed the bruise on my leg to our super lame futon. After my
roommate and her boyfriend so graciously explained
the nights happenings, I proceeded to make my way back to our ever
so trusty toilet, and deposit last nights drinks out of my body and into
the toilet. This continued about once every hour or so for a couple
hours and cause me to miss my first few classes. (Another great tip: if
youre puking you get a mental free-pass to not attend class that day
so hooray for you). Nevertheless, I had to make my way downstairs for
an accounting quiz. Drinking the night before a quiz or exam is another thing that I
would rank up there in my list of poor life choices, by the way. So after the quiz passed, I
had to venture back to the house via the bus to retrieve my purse. Which, as I was told,
fell off when I was dropped doing a keg stand. Just to be sure Id make it, I then quickly
expelled some more of last nights drinks into the toilet and left to catch the bus to the
house. Now, once you get off the bus, you have to walk just a short distance down the
sidewalk and across the street, a seemingly simple task, but it proved to be much
harder on this particular day. Just steps away from the cross-walk, I hit a low point in my
life, and had to stop to throw up just a bit more of the green alcoholic concoction in my
stomach in a nearby snowbank. (Puking in public: although not necessarily a choice, its
probably number one on the poor choices list) I then retrieved my purse and made the
trek back to my dorm once more.
Now, just to sum up this first anecdote and make sure you got all of the main
points here, Im going to make you a simple bulleted list with some important takeaways.

Drink lots of alcohol

Especially before exams/quizzes
Dont worry about your safety, youll be fine.
Do keg stands whenever possible
Puking in public is a no but a yes when it comes to making poor choices.

Alright great! Onto the next chapter then.

Chapter II Drunk Hookups

In case the first chapter wasnt enough, Ive so graciously decided to include
another alcohol-related chapter. You can thank me later. This chapter is going to be
slightly different from the last chapter, and instead of focusing on the events of one
evening, I shall discuss the overall happenings related to some of my drunken hookups
with friendly strangers.

When it comes to a drunk hookup, its best to have as low of standards as

possible, so you can make sure you hookup with a variety of people, becoming more
cultured. The rest of the process tends to just happen for itself, but consuming a
moderately large amount of alcohol before-hand is very important to the flow of the
random hookup. When drunk, the brain doesnt really register any
awkward situations so it makes it very easy to just walk up to a
stranger and essentially start making out with them immediately.
Getting to know the person is of very low importance, and re-con
can be performed the next day by you and your friends if you really
want to know more about them, but that defeats much of the
purpose of the meaningless drunk hookup. Plus,
if youre as lucky as me, you may later get the
surprise of finding out that your mystery hookup
happens to be employed at the same place as you and you will
share weird moments of accidental eye contact every now and then.
So Ill provide a couple different examples (complete with pictures to
help you understand the situation better.) One of my drunken
experiences, with this young lad just above here, was as simple as I
explained just now and, according to some eyewitnesses, he simply
approached, said perhaps one sentence along the lines of do you
want to make out with me? and naturally it would be rude to say no,
so I accepted. It can be as simple as that my friends. A very similar
situation took place as well with this fellow to the right as well. Except,
heres a real bonus tip, to make your drunken hookups even better, be
sure to hook up in his friends room and definitely leave a piece of your
clothing there for the friends girlfriend to find. That will only make
things better. Then, be sure if youre offered a ride home, to somehow
miss out on it and walk as far home as possible. Also purchasing Tropical Smoothie can
enhance your walk home.
Now, another great tip, is to at least make out with 2 different people in one
night. In some cases they will think its great and want matching pictures of themselves
making out with you. This almost never goes wrong, and is something I too have
experienced, and the gentlemen who participated found it to be enlightening and
hilarious. So now comes the time for a short bulleted list, to once again make sure you
really captured the message of this chapter.

Moral of the story:

Hookup with random strangers

Mainly when youre drunk
Dont interact with them again afterwards
Make out with multiple people in one night, it will never go wrong.
Dont bother to learn anything about the person youve chosen to hook up with
Also, this one wasnt as clear in the chapter but definitely make sure your friends
are around to take pictures so that the president of your fraternity can send them
to himself and hoard as future blackmail.

Chapter 3 drinking before exams & staying up late

Just in case you havent caught on yet, most, if not all, chapters are actually very
likely to be related to alcoholas alcohol is a great aid in making poor choices. Its like
your right hand man for bad decisions. So in this chapter I am going to teach you the
best way to deal with stressful exams and/or quizzes.
While many people may believe that studying hard and
learning the material is what will help you best, it is not. I will admit
that studying ahead of time can help though, because that frees up
more time for you when it gets closer to the exam. This free time
should very likely be spent drinking. In my personal experience, I
have found it best that, when you have some sort of educational
evaluation, the best possible thing to do it get very drunk the night before. Just have
some fun because you know youre going to be miserable the next day after you take
that exam. Why not just add to that misery and throw in a hangover to go along with it?
At least you can forget about your terrible exam for the night right? Also, I find that its
best for everyone involved that you just dont even bother to plug your phone in. just let
it die. Youll definitely wake up in time for the exam anyway and now you dont have to
suffer a minor explosion inside your head when the alarm goes off.
Next, staying up late falls under the category of drinking before exams, but is
mostly just a perk choice that comes along with many other poor choices. However it
can be its own poor choice in itself as well. Staying up much past a reasonable hour also
comes in phases, or levels. For example, just last night we had a shindig at my house

and I, thinking that I am an adult and can make my own choices, decided to stay up to
what I would say is a level 5 past-your-bedtime situation. Meaning I chose to stay up
until 5 am with a random Irish person I just met, knowing full well that I had to work at
8am this morning. This is a level 5 because I reached the point where I may as well have
just stayed up all night because the minimal hours of sleep I got really did nothing for
me. The following chart gives a brief description of the 5 levels of past-your-bedtime
situations.

Level
I

Description
I get it, you were busy and didnt get to
bed until an hour or so after your regular

II

bedtime.
Alright I can tell youve at least done
something thrilling or maybe did some
drugs earlier because now you cant fall
asleep very well and you have to wake up

III

early tomorrow.
Sleep is for the weakbut im gunna go to
bed after I get drunk and essentially pass

IV
V

out
Turn down for what
Im not even sure why you bothered to go
to bed because it was useless.
****These stages generally only apply if you do, in fact, have to be awake at a
specified time the next day. If you dont have anything to do the next day then
its not a poor choice and you can stay up as late as you want because you are a
functional human being who does what they want, remember that.
So basic summary for this short chapter:
Drink before any test/quizzes/educational evaluations
Stay up late cause were all going to die anyway

Chapter 4- Eating Salads

Contrary to what I last chapter, this next chapter is actually not going to be
alcohol related and we are going to focus more on me eating salads. While eating
salads in general is probably a good life choice that is not the main concentration
of these next few hundred words. The thing about eating salads, while they are
healthy, is that for them to really be any good or worthwhile, it is very necessary
that you get one of each topping in every bite you consume. Here is a small
diagram that depicts precisely what Ive just said

Great so now that thats clear Ill move on to the actual act of consuming the salad. My
personal technique is to really make sure you get the entirety of the food on the fork
into your mouth in one bite. None of that eat-half-of-the-bite-to-look-dainty-then-the-rest
garbage. I like to just really take the fork and smash all of its contents into my mouth.
Completely disregard how you look while doing this because I can assure you that you
will look 100% like a real troll and/or goblin. This really helps to ward off any and all
potential suitors that you may have had in the cafeteria at the time. Also it is really
important, if someone else is sitting across from you, to maintain eye contact with them
while shoveling what a rabbit probably eats into your mouth. This way they can
definitely see how atrocious you look but also know that youre still interested in
conversing with them. (Which reminds me, its actually best that when you are eating
with someone, you just sit in silence and eat the food as fast as you can with minimal

conversation). From here you are going to very likely encounter a small struggle with
chewing your salad because you have very likely stuffed more food than necessary into
your mouth, never fear though! The simple solution is to chew with your mouth open for
a short time period so as to create more room for the salad contents. **Later versions of
this book may include a live action picture of me eating a salad but for now you just get
the diagram depicted above**
Short summary:

If youre gunna eat salad make sure you look like a slob while doing it
Chapter 5- I Cant Think Of a Good Enough Title
Now this next chapter, much like Beauty and The Beast, truly is a tale as old as

time. Although it is less about my bad choices/how to make them and more about other
peoples poor choices that I happened to be there for. To start off, Id just like to set the
scene for this particular story: It was a warm summer and/or fall day in the wonderful
town of East Lansing and I (and an acquaintance of mine, by the name of Emily) was
making a visit to her brother who lives in EL. I do believe my sister and another
acquaintance SHAUN, were there too but for the sake of this story, they dont really
matter. So, moving on with the story, Emily and I were but a mere 16 or 17 years old
and were about to experience the magic of EL for one of the first time in our young little
lives. Did we know what we were getting ourselves into? No, but did we end up better
off than the irrelevant Lauren and SHAUN? I would dare to say yes. But their evening is
a story for another day. Lucky for us, Victors neighbor Terrence was having a party so
naturally that is where the events of the night took place. First of all, hot life tip: play
beer pong whenever possible. I say this because sometimes your friends tell you that
theyve never lost a game of beer pong before, and sometimes you & your friends
brother then promptly beat her them at beer pong. So practice up kids. Now, after
beating Emily at beer pong, the night took a turn for the worse/better in the case of this
story. Victor, being the responsible person he is, managed to lose grip of his phone at
some point and unfortunately had it fall into whatever concoction he was consuming at
the time. Naturally, this caused quite the panic to all, thus starting a rampage of
drunken college kids trying to fix it. Because Emily and I were highly educated high
school students at the time, we naturally knew that you have to put the phone in some
rice and all your problems will be solved. However, there was some confusion and this
seemed to be a bit jumbled in translation between our high school brains and their
college brains and it was interpreted that the phone must be cooked in ricelike with
heaton a stoveWhile this clearly makes no sense to any normal human being, drunk
college students dont have the same capability to filter out poor choices and bad logic
as well as the average human. So, as they proceeded to place the phone in a pot with
rice and turn on the stove, Emily took it upon herself to find a plastic bag to put rice in,

partially in hopes of fixing the situation already at hand but also because she didnt
realize they had already put the phone on the stove so she assumed we still needed a
bag. Now, during all of this I personally just stood there in a generally confused state,
not really knowing what to do and simply observing these creatures in their natural
habitat. What happened next is what truly makes this a tale that will be passed on for
ages. Emily thought she had surely found the drawer that would contain a plastic bag, it
was a long skinny drawer right under the sinknow any person who has ever been in a
normal household may have recognized this as simple paneling to make the space in
front of the sink look pretty, but a drunken Emily did not make this association. She then
grabbed it and, using her new found drunken strength, pulled the drawer open as fast
as she couldcausing a large thud, Emily, and the panel that she just ripped off of
Terrences humble abode, fell to the floor (not sure if she actually fell but it makes the
story better). Somehow the gods were smiling upon Emily that night though and nobody
else but me noticed so we got away with that one. The rest of the night basically
consisted of victor taking the burning hot phone off of the stove and being surprised
that it was hot for some reason. Then everyone pretty much went to sleep while myself
and victor watched Aladdin or some other Disney for what was probably the 4 th time
that day. The next day consisted mostly of lying in bed and trying to be like the stick*.
Which leads us into the story of Lauren and SHAUN, which is really
not too thrilling of a story but I like to tell it so my readers can take
as many poor life choices from it as possible. So the morning after
Emily broke the paneling & Victor cooked his phone was mainly
spent laying around as mentioned before, however it was rudely
interrupted by a phone call from Lauren, stating she had managed
to get herself and SHAUN to a random dudes apartment in
downtown Lansing.naturally we refused to pick her up and they
had to struggle home. That basically sums up the story; I just
wanted to get that out there to point out a few excellent choices
made that night:

Definitely go to a strangers home that lives miles

away & stay the night

When trying to dry out a phone in rice, make sure you

turn the stove on

When trying to open a drawer, use as much strength as possible so as to
rip it completely off the wall

*The Stick: a magical being that lives by virtues based around peace, tranquility, and
remaining motionless for large portions of time.

Chapter 6 The Job Application

Before I start this next chapter, Id like you to first ask yourself: Am I having a
good day today? and if you find yourself answering that question Yes then I want you
to skip this chapter. Skip this chapter and come back to it when you are having a not-sogood day. A day when you just need to read about the unfortunate events in somebody
elses life so you can feel better about your life; that is the day I want you to read this
chapter. However, if you answered no to the aforementioned question, or find that the
past few sentences described your day quite wellplease proceed on with the reading
of this chapter.
It all starts with an e-mail that I had received however long ago, containing
information about a Job I was interested in applying for. I was also on a semester abroad
in Germany at the time and this job was for when I returned home, just so you are all
caught up to speed on that. So naturally, I completed an application for said job, and
attached it to an e-mail which I then sent back to the company. Now, I understand this
doesnt seem too interesting yet but, trust me, its about to be. So you seethe same
night I was working on this job application, I was also writing another chapter in this
very book you are reading right now. And somehow, I managed to save my application
and this here story under the opposite names (you see where this is going now?) SOOO
to my lovely, lovely surprise one hungover Wednesday morning, I was reading through
my e-mails and noticed one from the aforementioned company. I opened it. All it said
was did you mean to send a document about poor life choices? Immediately I thought
perhaps I was actually asleep and dreaming this, however, I was not. I did, in fact,
attach a 10 page document of drunk stories (and pictures) of myself in an e-mail to a
potential employer. I believe I came up with some weird cover story involving a creative
writing project and definite blame on the German computers all of which was 100%
made up as obviously this is not a creative writing project and more or less just pages of
drunk stories for others entertainment. I dont think they bought it.
It may also be good to note that this particular morning I had woken up late for
class and actually locked my keys in my room as well. So I was temporarily homeless,
hungover, and needless to say I did not get so much as an interview for the job.
Welcome to Germany Paige.

Chapter 7- Locked out

This is a very short chapter that is simply included as a tiny glimpse of my
semester in Germany, although there will inevitable more chapters to come with stories
of my time abroad. So here it goes:
During my 5 months in Germany I managed to lock my keys in my room not one,
not two, but three times. Two of these times were solved relatively quickly, however one
time I ended up living on my friends floor for around 4 days before getting let back in to
my precious room. For the rest of the semester I wore my room key on a hair tie on my
wrist at all times. That is all.

Chapter 8- The Russian.

Alright folks, hold on to your hats and glasses because this chapter truly gets
wild. Although the majority of it will be told through screenshots of a text conversation, I
will now proceed with a slight introduction. So, it was my 20 th birthday, I was in
Germany, and we went to Berrys (a club in my German town.) Now, being as It was my
birthday it almost goes without saying that I was heavily intoxicated and running around
the club with my friends more or less in search of someone to make-out with because it
was my birthday and I wanted to. One suitor then approached me and my friend Trish at
the bar, however he was some creepy Russian dude and I mentally passed over him
rather quickly. Trish and myself then proceeded to dance drunkenly around the club,
actually leave the club for about 2 minutes, return to the club, and continue dancing
until around 4 am. During the second dancing time-period, the Russian guy I previously
mentioned followed me around a bit until I drunkenly decided to dance with him. This
dancing lasted about 2 minutes and was followed by a short interaction of our mouths
for maybe 10-30 seconds at best. What happened next was truly a rookie mistake on
my part and essentially led to my downfall. As I tried to escape the strange Russian
fellow and dodge his requests to go to his apartment, I somehow gave him my phone
number. Rookie. Mistake. By then it was around 4 am and me and Trish drunkenly
stumbled home for the night.
After waking up and promptly regurgitating the last nights vodka red bulls into
my toilet, I checked my phone to find a message from the Russian guy (lets just call
him Vlad cause I never found out his name and that sounds Russian). Of course, I had
no interest in further communicating with good old Vlad, so I just didnt answer, as I
assumed most people knew that drunken phone numbers you get from clubs dont
count for real and most humans dont actually call those numbers. Vlad was different.
For about the next 2 weeks he would constantly call and text me, not seeming to get
the hint I was trying to throw out there. SO this is where those screenshots I promised

come in as one day he decided to send a picture.and the screenshots will tell the rest.
NOTE: I was in fact drunk at the time of this conversation so that may explain any
strange things I say.

at this point I did block him on whatsapp but was unable to successfully block
him from texting me normallyleading to the following text:

So that mostly sums up the story of the crazy Russian dude. I hope it truly
inspired you to make poor choices and here is my short summary for you:

Obvi make out with strangers

Give them your number
They will likely try to pay for sexual favors
Whether or not you accept is up to you
Im personally only into offers of $1,000 and up so

Chapter 9 Jam All Over My Backpack

Honestly at this point Im intoxicated whilst writing this and I do not recall exactly
what happened on this evening, however as I recall there was a party in one of the
buildings on campus at my German university. As per usual I had to order some
pretty strong drinks, so for this evening those drinks were vodka red bulls. From
here Im not sure what happened however the next day is the main part of this
story. I woke up at probably 10am German time to find a roll of bread next to my
face, covered in jam. From there I proceeded to stand up and go to the bathroom,
only to discover jam ALL over my room. It was on my laptop, shelves, and most
importantlyall over my backpack. To this day I do not know how or why it got all
over my belongings but remains to be one of the best stories. Mainly because I had
texted my friend that day telling her the story and she responded with the exact
same story only with cream cheese all over her room instead of jam. Incredible.

Chapter 10- Night Games Part 1: Dog Girl

Now, for the next few chapters I will be discussing a few separate events, all
of which however, have taken place during or after tailgating for a night football
game. I also find it necessary to mention that I have never made it past 8pm EST
during a night game without completely blacking outso anyway, the date was
September 6th 2014, a beautiful summery day in East Lansing, and also the first
night game of the season for the Spartan football team. Of course, because it was a
night game, there was an aggressive amount of tailgating involved, namely, the
consumption of copious amounts of Burnetts premium vodka. From there, the night
went generally as planned. I tailgated and then met up with some other friends later
in the nightor so I thought. The next day was when the mystery slowly unraveled
as I had originally told my roommate the night was pretty average, however I
discovered a pin in my purse that said Happy 21 st Birthday! but had no

recollection of obtaining said pin. This led me to have to retrace some steps and
that went as follows:
1. Look at previous texts
2. See I texted none other than Alison Trumble, telling her I may stop by later
3.
4.
5.
6.

that night
Text her again today to confirm I did not, in fact, stop by
She tells me I did stop by aha! Mystery solved
Ask her how long I was there
Her response: not long, we shot gunned a beer and you told me you were
just out looking for dogs. Then you saw our neighbors had a puppy and

freaked out **note: neighbors now call me dog girl**

7. Ask if I stole a birthday pin from someone
8. Nope
9. Text few other friends asking if they saw me last night
10.nope
11.Mystery not solved
From here I was quite stumped as to where the pin came from and what I had done
in the remaining 2 or so hours of unaccounted time in my night. I did vaguely recall
getting lost on Burcham road for about a half hour and then meeting up with some
friends, however the mystery of the birthday pin remained. Note, by the time I had
figured all of this out and gained this information it was approximately 8pm the next
day as I spent the first half of the day thinking I had a normal night. So from here I
had to step up the investigation.
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.

Text group chat asking if anyone had a birthday party

Eureka! Someone says a friends roommate turned 21 and there was a party
Text aforementioned friend asking if I stopped by
BINGO she says I did drop by
Apologize for stealing pin
She says she didnt even notice or think I was drunk at the time
Lol

9pm the next day and I have solved the mystery. Hoorah. However, it was also
discovered the next day that in a drunken stupor I purchased a hookah pen as I
thought it tasted like gummy bears and that during the same time period I was
lost, walking around East Lansing, alone, someone was stabbed. Fortunately that
person was not me and I was not stabbed, but it seemed worth mentioning.

SO chapter summary here:

Walk around drunk, alone, at night you probably wont die

When in doubt: just go look for dogs, you may find one!

Steal things from people on their birthday, they probably wont notice.
Drink Burnetts always

Chapter 11- Night Games Part 2: Harpers

Oh night games, my one true love and simultaneously my worst enemy. So, like the
last chapter, this story also occurred on a drunken evening in East Lansing
before/during/after a night football game, however one year later.

Chapter 13- Babys First Wedding (vomit for breakfast)

Poor choices Ive made: A list

Throwing up in a snowbank, in public.

Hooking up with people Ive just met/ (not that poor of a choice if ya ask me but

some people may beg to differ *cough*EMILY*cough*)

Falling off of my bed & breaking the shelf
Losing my wallet/purse/ID multiple times
Drinking before exams
Putting just lemonade powder into alcohol
Drinking a variety of alcoholic beverages in one night
Eating salad in public
Not stealing max when I had the chance
Pretty much everything I do while drunk at my frat
Giving my phone number to a weird Russian guy at a club in Germany
Drinking vodka Red Bull at any time, ever.
Jam all over my backpack

Sending this document attached to an email instead of a job application

Going to Berrys (a club) on Mondays and still thinking Id make it to class the
next day
Night football games in general
Living alone with no spare key
Walking around EL alone the night of a stabbing
Giving strange Russian guys my phone number
Leaving harpers at 8pm and thinking it was 8am

*This is a tentative list as will be continuously updated as I inevitably make

more poor choices.