The Blacker-Outer's Guide: Chapter II: Riddle Me This

All right, let's assume that, after pleasuring as many grizzly bears as logically necessary, you've safely made it home. Feels good to be back in a familiar environment, no? Well don't get too comfortable yet, sweetheart. This is when your investigation begins in earnest. Now that you're not preoccupied with gathering your nearby belongings and figuring out how to get back to your humble abode without giving up one of your virginities, you've actually got the chance to stop and think.

Yes, it will hurt a little at first.

Use this opportunity to try and figure out specifically the last thing you remember. You're going to want this as a starting point. Odds are your last memories are pleasant ones, such as groping your buddy's girlfriend while you absent-mindedly pick your nose. If your last memories are less pleasant, say, repeatedly telling a lone biker the myriad ways in which you think his boyfriend is ugly, take this as a warning sign, because things were probably already taking a turn for the worse before the blackout [and fists] hit you with full force. Like big, floppy blackouts are prone to do.

If you have your phone, now's the time to check it. Try estimating the time you started blacking out, then take a look at your call log after that period and check your voicemails. If you're lucky, someone you know has left a voicemail (angry or otherwise) that gives a few clues of the mistakes you made last night, but at the very least you can see who you talked to mid-blackout. It's important you pay attention to the details. Did you call people while your brain was MIA, or did they call you? How long did you talk to them for? If your phone only reports 10 to 20 seconds for a given phone call to your parents, they might not have answered anyway, so don't panic just yet if you see a 7-second call in your log. If a call lasts for more than a minute, though, congratulations: you had a mobile conversation with someone at some point in the evening! Make a list of the people you corresponded with but don't remember doing so; you're almost definitely going to be hearing from these people, like it or not. And it's best you don't sound too surprised when they call later this afternoon with a sentence that starts with "Dude, I can't believe you...".

Now check your text messages. Same principle here: we're looking for more clues. You might not have gotten into X-Files much back in the day, but right now you're in the middle of a full-fledged mystery, and it may as well have involved alien abductions and a sex-starved Scully. It's unlikely that you were capable of constructing any coherent text messages yourself; your inbox is of importance here. Let me run some examples by you of the kind of texts you don't want in said inbox [taken from my actual inbox over the last 3 years]:

dude, wht happened to u last nigt??
are u ok????
plse call me AS SOON as you get this! im worried
i wuz inside you last night, dude
I'm formally disowning you, son. And I'm no longer paying your phone bill. Fuck you. -Dad

You get the idea. But don't worry, sometimes this can go in the absolute opposite direction. It's not a huge chance, but there is a possibility nonetheless that last night, after 12,000 of your brain cells collectively packed their bags and headed south of the border without so much as an awkward morning-after kiss, you were awesome! Waking up in a purple vomit puddle might not be a good indicator of this, but maybe, just maybe, you were The Man last night. Your instincts might have taken over so well that no one even knew you were blacked out, save for the Exorcist-esque way in which your eyes were rolled towards the back of your head. Here are some examples of texts that might indicate your night didn't go so horribly wrong after all:

dude, wht happened to u last night??
lol, i can't believe you tried to eat a cat last night, man...classic!
hows your leg?? that was the coolest roundhouse kick ive ever seen
I wuz inside you last night, dude
u r so funny! are we still going on a date tmrw nite?

Now check all your pockets. Receipts are always a good find, because you probably made some dumb purchases at some point. Got a receipt for a pack of cigarettes? Oh yeah, that makes sense, because you're one of those posers who only smokes when he drinks. This means your throat is sore and scratchy right now because you huffed and puffed your way through half a pack of Marb Lights and not because your adam's apple saw the business end of a homeless man's cock at 4:37a.m. (sorry for continuing to come back to the gay rape thing, really I am. But it's a dangerous world filled with unsavory people, friend. It really is). See? You're putting together some of the puzzle pieces already!

When you're done examining your clothes for evidence, take them all off and stand in front of a mirror. If you have any injuries, be they internal or ex, you might not be feeling them just yet. But you will. Alcohol has a penchant for numbing pain and relaxing muscles when consumed in mass quantities. Remember all those stories you hear about drunk drivers who get in accidents and kill people but are fine themselves because their muscles are so relaxed? It might be unfair, but that shit's no joke; science is backing me up here.

Therefore, starting from the bottom up, check yourself for abrasions, cuts, bruises, hand marks, or anything else that's out of place. If you look like a decidedly less badass John McClane after giving Hans a much-needed lesson in badassery that involves renegade helicopters, newsflash: you might have been in a fight. Not good. On the bright side, however, that fight might not have been with a person; when you're blacked out, virtually any inanimate object can become your enemy. In fact, one of my college buddies once bruised a rib or three after picking a fight with a staircase after two or four liquid cocaines and one terrible excuse to take them. Guess who won?

Now that you've gathered every piece of evidence you can from your person, it's time for a shower. You deserve it, and you're going to want to be a little more refreshed when it comes time to confront your friends/associates later in the day. That's right, I'm afraid it's unavoidable. Like it or not, the memories from last night are long gone, and there's no pill you can pop to get them back. Unless by some unholy miracle everyone else you were with last night blacked out on the exact same scale as you, it's now your sad job to gingerly glean information from them without letting on that you're a hopeless, pitiful alcoholic who will never find love, self fulfillment, or the dignity you keep leaving behind in random people's apartments.

Don't miss Part III: "So Things Got a Little Out of Hand Last Night, Huh?"