Pass The Tequila, Sheila!

The only women on this island, as far as I could tell, were the ones we brought with us. I had three with me. There were loads of others on the boat.

Isla Mujeres, or The Island of Women, was our party destination for the evening. Just to the northeast of Cancun, Mexico, it was an up-and-coming tourist destination, and we were off to a beach party. Johnny Banana and his band was to perform live Caribbean music while we danced and participated in drinking games, all organized by a Cancun tourist group.

My lady friends and I were drinking a lot over our vacation. And our drink of choice, surprisingly, was tequila.

Normally, I can't drink tequila. It all goes back to an evening, in my teens, when some friends and I got into the stuff that we raided from one parents' liquor cabinet. We had already had a couple of bottles of beer—we had waited outside the Brewer's Retail store (now, The Beer Store), looking for someone who would buy us a six-pack—and decided to do a couple of shots of whatever could be dipped into without being obvious that liquid was missing.

I threw back my first shot and immediately felt ill. I ran to the bathroom and barely got over the toilet before I started vomiting violently.

I chalked it up to mixing beer and liquor.

But no: whenever I drank tequila—be it my first drink on a full stomach or empty stomach, be it a shot or a small sip—as soon as it went down, it came straight back up.

Mexico was an entirely different situation. I had tequila held out to me from a person standing in front of a restaurant on our first night. He was trying to entice us to come in. "Free tequila poppers all night," he beckoned.

I was reluctant, but egged on my the three women in my group, I accepted the proffered shot glass. "You're going to regret this," I said to them as I tilted back my head and poured the clear fluid down my throat.

It stayed down.

We went into the restaurant and drank until we could barely stand. It was one of my friends who was sick to her stomach, the next morning and well into the afternoon, when she threw up in the Caribbean waters.

And here we were, on Isla Mujeres, ready to party and play more drinking games.

At one point in the evening, the organizers divided the party-goers into two groups: men against women. A relay race was prepared and we were given the instructions:

1. Take a swig of tequila from a jumbo bottle.
2. Take the proffered stick with a string attached to one end and try to pull a wooden fish out of the sand, like you're fishing.
3. With the fish out of the sand, drop the stick and run to the other end of the beach, where someone awaited with another bottle of tequila.
4. Take a giant swig from the bottle.
5. Place one hand on a wooden pole, which extended a foot out of the sand, and, while staring at the pole and keeping the one hand on it, run around it 10 times.
6. Run back to the starting point and tag the next person.
7. The first team to complete the relay course wins.

The guys won.

I was so dizzy and drunk that I could barely stand straight, but I joined the rest of my team in lining up to win our prize. The prize was a full bottle of tequila.

We stood in a line and faced the losers. The first person in our line was passed the bottle and he had to drink as much as he could, and then pass the bottle on. We were told that the bottle had to be empty by the time everyone had a swig.

I turned to the guy next to me, who would be receiving the bottle before me. "Take as much as you can, buddy," I said. "If I have another swig, I'm going to hurl."

"Me too," he said.

The bottle reached him. He took a couple of gulps and then handed me the bottle. I filled my mouth with as much as it could hold before passing the bottle onto the next fellow.

With all eyes following the bottle, as soon as it left my hands, I turned around and spat out the tequila. The guy before me, who took a few gulps, said, "Oh man, I should have thought of doing that," and promptly threw up.

I said the guys won the relay. In retrospect, I think we lost.

BTW: for those of you who don't get the reference to my title, either you're too young, not Canadian, or don't remember your political history. Google it.