I am 20. It is a rainy June evening in the basement of a smoke-filled house. We are playing a drinking game that involves guessing the value of the next card in the deck. However many digits away from your guess indicates the number of drinks you take. The rules are not too complicated. If the correct card is guessed, everybody else has to drink, and you’re allowed to choose to continue your turn, compounding the number of drinks with each additional card.
A card counter I am not, but maybe someone in my brain is. On my first turn, I pick 8, a relatively safe bet considering its location in the middle of the deck. Dead on. I elect to continue. My next prediction: 3. Dead on. As the confidence pulsates through me, watching my friends drink their drinks, I stand up and shout, “This game is too easy. Queen of hearts!” The next card is flipped, revealing a red lady, the right red lady, and the entire room erupts in cheers.
At one point the upstairs neighbour comes down to try to make us be quiet, even threatening to call the cops on us. I reply, “You go back up to your own place or I’ll call the cops ON YOU!” I get another ovation, and the neighbour slinks back upstairs.
I am hailed a hero for the rest of the night and even a few times in the future when the story is referenced by someone else. However, as glorious as that night was, when the queen of hearts showed herself, I could not enjoy it, for I knew I would never again reach these triumphant heights.