This is the story of the shot of tequila I had last Thursday night which ended up costing me $430.

It all started at a Christmas party I went to on the Thursday night. I wasn’t planning on drinking much, so I drove there. I had a couple of beers early, but had had nothing for a few hours, so would have been perfectly fine to drive home.

I was feeling good with myself for not getting tempted by all the free alcohol. But then I went and messed it all up by having one shot of tequila. Not even sure why I did it, given tequila is absolutely awful. But anyway, I did it, it was done, so I decided that I would leave my car there, catch a cab home, and pick up the car in the morning.

I then proceeded to have a couple more drinks, then jumped in a cab and went home.

The next morning started off badly. Here’s what happened:

1. I woke up with a cramp in my leg.

2. There was nothing in the house for breakfast.

3. The first two trains were cancelled, meaning that I had to wait half an hour for a train, which was inevitably crammed with three trains worth of people.

4. The breakfast burger I bought at Flinders Street station was the worst burger ever (it was full of pickle mustard, which wasn’t mentioned in the burger’s description on the menu board. Pickle mustard is not great at the best of times, let alone at 8am).

5. The tram took forever to arrive, and when it did it had a dodgy door that could open but not close. The driver had to get out of the driving compartment and manually close the door at every stop, which doubled the time of the journey.

6. There was a ticket inspector on the tram, and I had a band-aid on my thumb which made getting my ticket out of my wallet near impossible. After about a minute of me struggling, he was just about ready to give me a fine for not having a ticket.

After such a bad start to the morning, I was thinking that things could not get much worse. It had taken 90 minutes to get from my house back to where my car was (a trip that should have taking 45 minutes at most).

But then things got a whole lot worse.

My car was not where I left it. In fact it was nowhere to be seen.

Then it hit me - I had parked in a clearway zone, and the car had been towed away.

A delayed train and rotten burger paled into insignificance compared to the realisation that my car had been towed.

I found the phone number of the towing company on the pole with the clearway sign on it, a sign that now seemed to be laughing at my stupidity. The towing company gave me the address (after abusing the local council for publishing their number instead of the council’s number - as if I was the council), and I jumped in a cab, on my way to retrieve my car.

A tow would cost about $100 I thought. I was wrong.

The tow itself was a whopping $275. Talk about highway robbery.

Speaking of robbery, the towing company was located in a dodgy alley in Collingwood, that made me think of the company as one that stole cars and then made the owners pay a ‘ransom’ to get their cars back.

As I was handed my receipt for the $275 tow, the towing man said that they left the parking fine on the windshield. This hit me like a left hook as I am falling to the ground as the result of a right one. I totally forgot that there would be a fine as well, for parking in the clearway. The fine was $110, as you can see below.

I got my car, drove it away, and eventually got to work three hours after I had left home that morning. It proved to be one of the most frustrating mornings of my life.

The tequila shot I had was the difference between me driving home that night, and not driving home that night. By not driving home, it cost me the following:

Cab ride on Thursday night $25.50

Train/tram ticket $2.70

Breakfast burger $3.95

Tow $275

Cab to towing company $17.80

Parking fine $110

TOTAL $434.95

If I was thinking in a Mastercard frame of mind, I would also include:

Story that is ideal for introducing the fact that I am about to start goal 4 on my list - Priceless

Yes, this long-winded story did have a relevant point, besides the moral of not having shots of tequila. It serves as a great way to introduce that on January 2, 2008, I begin goal 4, which is to abstain from all forms of alcohol for 100 consecutive days - a goal I now wish I had started a couple of weeks ago!

The goal is complete if I can last until April 11. In the process, I hope to learn that alcohol is not required in order to have a fun time.

And if last Friday is anything to go by, I might save myself a few thousand dollars at the same time!