Visits: 39
“I’m falling down drunk,” she wrote. “First time in ages. Where is my kitty? He is my drunk comfort animal.”
“I would like some candy,” she added, before giving another update on the search for her cat: “BTW where exactly Is my fucking ing cat whe I need him.”
But her thoughts soon turned to the other residents of the household.
“I am@being shunned by my family because I am drunk,” she tweeted. “Yes ok I am fine with that FUCK YOU YOU FUCKING FUCKERS“ In two follow-up tweets, she wrote, “Proud fo day my husband is super embarrassed by me” and “No one on my house is talking to me right now ok!! YeH whatever I hzte you too .”
And then she stated the obvious, a sentiment no doubt shared by thousands of her followers, many of whom seemed to treat her tweets as an excuse for a lockdown drinking game: “Maybe I am drinking too much during THE FUCKING PANDEMIC.” (And to those who questioned whether this was really Orlean tweeting, she made it clear: “I have SO NOT BEEN HACKED.”)
As tweets piled up, one more surreal than the last, the Twitterverse increasingly joined in the conversation. “It’s Friday night and this is what’s left of America. Let Susan Orlean get drunk on the computer,” tweeted the writer/photographer Kaleb Horton. “If there is a Drunk Twitter Olympics then it should be ended right now because @susanorlean has just lapped the entire fucking field,” praised the Tufts professor Daniel W. Drezner. “You never expect drunk @susanorlean twitter is the thing that’s gonna cheer you up after a crappy week but here we are,” chimed in the publisher Anne Trubek. And, as The New York Times reporter Ben Casselman put it, “Honestly, drunk Susan Orlean is the best thing to happen in this garbage year and I appreciate her for bringing us all together tonight.”
Finally, as the evening began to approach midnight, Orlean seemed to realize it was time to call it quits: “I am goi f to sleep. My husband has asked me five hundred rimes@if I am alright. That means it’s go to sleep o’clock.” Soon after, her cat appeared. “Finally,” Orlean tweeted, posting a photo of the wayward pet, looking properly annoyed. (“So judgy,” tweeted a friend. “Seriously!” Orlean replied.)
Along the way, Orlean’s fans urged her not to regret on Saturday what she had posted on Friday night, typos and all, with one saying, “When you read these back tomorrow, please know that your tweets tonight were legendary.”
The last tweet came at 11:58 p.m.: “Hahaha very funny whoever put the stool softener right next to the Tylenol.” (That sparked some alarm among Orlean’s followers, several of whom warned of the dangers of mixing alcohol and Tylenol. But one was more prescriptive: “Alka Seltzer and a lot of water usually helps me. And maybe Pedialyte tomorrow. And some gross salty cheez puffs or whatever.”)
Yes, that is going to be one helluva hangover on Saturday morning.
