Take Two Aspirin & Blog Me In The Morning

"ugh," gavin cardigan grunted as he entered the pub.

"back at ya," danny blake replied with a snarl. "what's your problem? no wait, let me guess....hangover?"

cardigan nodded. "a doozey. i'd ask for a hair of the dog, but i didn't get drunk in the first place. i have no idea why i feel like this."

"join the club," blake murmured, pouring his friend a Guinness. "we all feel like that today." his gesture took in the others in the pub, all looking rather the worse for wear.

"what's that smell?" cardigan sniffed at the spicy, strong scent perfuming the air, noting the steaming bowls on the table in front of his friends.

"menudo," danny was already pouring a ladlefull into a heavy bowl for him. "best hangover cure ever."

"if you say so," cardigan sounded doubtful as he joined the others with his beer and menudo. "how did this happen to us?"

sierra charles shrugged as she scraped her spoon around her empty bowl. "beats me, but i can't really complain if it means eating menudo. this stuff is terrific, danny!" she pointed her spoon at her empty bowl.

marian was poking at her laptop. "i'm at a lost. i'm looking everywhere for some kind of medical explanation and am coming up empty."

"it should be good inspiration for a country song, though," linda nulo noted, turning toward her lanky boyfriend. "don't you think, hon?"

tucker swallowed the last of his menudo, shaking his shaggy head. "if i'd really been drinking, i could knock something out, but without knowing why i feel this way...i got nothing."

special assistant hepzibah slumped into the pub at that moment. "i can explain." she sat down next to marian, looked at the menudo and shuddered. "i'd rather suffer, danny. thanks, anyway."

"what happened, hepzibah?" the dishwater blond Mysterious Lurker asked. "where's burkie?"

"typing," s.a. hepzibah answered. "about this. see, he was at a different tavern last night, ordered a beer, and then the owner kept sending more his way before he could finish the one he was drinking. so, we feel this way because burkie feels this way."

"and he's taking it out on us!" marian made a face, then winced. "ouch. my face hurts."

"how'd burkie charm the owner?" taylor wondered. "threaten to put him in his blog as a zombie or something?"

"no, he wasn't buying drinks for burkie only. he was buying drinks for everybody. and you know burkie, he's such a sweet guy--" she glared at cardigan until he stopped coughing, "--he drank the beer. and the next. and the next. he hasn't had this much to drink since st. patrick's day, 1984!"

"so, burkie's hung over and he's making us feel it, too," tucker mused. he strummed a couple of chords and shook his head. "nope, still nothing."

"actually," hepzibah admitted with some annoyance, "he doesn't feel hung over at all. he's shocked that he doesn't, actually. he just doesn't want it to catch up with him, so he's channeling any hangover qi he may have into us."

"hangover qi?" sierra was skeptical. "wtf?!"

"yeah, even i don't buy into that concept," the Lurker had borrowed marian's mirror, wishing she could borrow her scowl as well as she examined her still-dishwater blond locks.

s.a. hepzibah shrugged. "hey, don't shoot the messenger."

"can we shoot burkie?" cardigan growled around a mouthful of menudo.

"then officer shakalaka could come interrogate us," the Lurker noted mischeviously, "right, hepzibah?"

s.a. hepzibah put her hands on her stomach to calm the butterflies. "uh, you know, that menudo doesn't look too bad...."