8:35: Wake up disoriented. Taste your mouth – it is a wasteland. Your head feels as though a thousand tiny lemmings are chiseling away in unison at the inside of your cranium. There it is. You’re hung-over.

8:36: Writhe between the sheets. Groan intermittently. Weigh your two options: 1) Stay put and waste the day or 2) face the day (e.g. the considerable heap of tasks and duties that require immediate attention). Question the previous night’s choices. Try to remember what those choices even were.

8:45: Roll out of bed and shuffle into the bathroom. Feel the full weight of the hangover. Stare at yourself in the mirror through puffy, squinted eyes and survey the wreckage across the landscape of your face. Give up any hope of getting to work on time. Feel shame and regret.

8:46: Take a shower. Eyes closed, hands clasped loosely at the small of your back, groaning, “Whyyyy?”

9:10: Eat McDonalds breakfast.

9:21: Wait for bus in the rain. Feel the McDs breakfast settle in your stomach like a sloth in the grass. Shame and regret intensifies.

9:56: Arrive at work. Slump into your cubicle. Boot up computer and stare absently at the screen as the machines blips and whirls, which mirrors your own mental faculties.

10:16: Organize your to-do list. Scroll through Facebook. Switch. Repeat.

10:36: Swear off drinking ever again.

10:37: Or, OK, maybe just from drinking that much ever again.

10:38: On a weeknight.

10:41 Oscillate between worrying and all-out panicking that maybe this isn’t a hangover after all, but a horrible terminal disease, the symptoms of which have finally been brought on by your low immune system caused by excessive drinking.

11:42: Check WebMd.com for symptoms. Further panic.

12:15: Respond to emails. Squint endlessly while writing, as if squeezing intelligent thoughts into being, but mostly failing.

12:45: Feel pretty good, actually, now that you’ve found a groove. Nausea and fuzzyheaded symptoms appear dissipated. Mood lifts accordingly.

12:46: Reward yourself by going for a walk around the building for fresh air.

12:56: Walk around in the rain. Regret taking walk.

1:02 Slump back into cubicle. Note that all motivation to work has been lost, having lost your groove following your ill-advised walk. Plot regaining your groove while scanning your Facebook feed. Put it on your to-do list.

1:04: Realize that you’ve gone this whole time without talking to single person, which lifts your mood considerably.

1:09: Feel a rising panic over your heaping stack of work, which you now realize has no chance of actually being completed today.

1:16: Feel suddenly ravenous, now that your digestive system has dealt with McDs breakfast and is now bellowing for legitimate sustenance.

1:16:30: Break for lunch.

1:35: Eat a salad.

2:10: Slump back in cubicle. Feel your stomach bellow again and wish you’d eaten more than salad.

2:20: Notice moderate improvement in energy and mood, though hangover persists. Finally get down to the necessary tasks at hand.

3:00: Feel depleted from your burst productivity. Pick your nose absently and hope no one notices. Feel further shame and regret, which you indulge in for quite some time because it’s getting kinda late in the day to fight it and, actually, it’s kinda nice to wallow in this shame right now. Revert to browsing social media, this time on Instagram, which is more conducive to mindless scrolling.

3:30: Break for another walk around the building. Consider eating a slice of pizza.

3:44: Eat two slices of pizza.

3:47: Consider drinking a beer. Ask yourself, “Will this help me at all? How will this make me feel?”

4:15: Drink a beer.

4:35: Finish beer. Consider going back to the office and “burning the midnight oil,” or packing it in and lying around in bed for a marathon TV binge with the streaming service of your choosing.

4:37: Pack it in.  Percentage of day’s necessary tasks actually completed: 15-20 per cent (generous estimate).

4:52: Feebly justify your lack of productivity as you wait for the bus. Find solace in the fact that nobody’s really productive on a Friday…right?

4:53: Right guys? Hello?

5:30: Sprawl onto your couch. Fight the urge to drink whatever beer is in the fridge. Legitimately hear it call your name. Realize that it’s your wife, who is making a snack in the kitchen. Greet your wife.

6:30: Realize that the hangover has finally evaporated and you feel like yourself for the first time in well over 24 hours. Consider Friday night’s possibilities.

7:15: Pay the pizza delivery guy $29 plus tip, silently scolding your wife for not pausing the program (e.g. Nashville. Don’t ask.).

9:30: Shuffle into bed. Fade to black.