By Sonya Matejko from Single Strides* *Guest post. Contact AsToldOverBrunch@gmail.com if you are interested in guest posting.

Imagine: It’s a Sunday morning; you crawl out from under the covers and curse at yourself for not lowering the blinds before you fell asleep. You search all over your bed for your phone (the one you swear you’re going to start putting elsewhere before bedtime). After a brief moment of thinking you lost it, you find it underneath the monopoly of pillows. You blink your eyes open to adjust to the screen and read the messages left for you. You either breathe a sigh of relief, or you quickly delete any proof of illegible texts (because somehow this means they never happened).

You stretch out and suddenly realize it’s like you’ve never been more dehydrated in your entire life. You look towards the door that is just footsteps away from the kitchen… and after 10 seconds of deliberation you decide it’s just too far. You glance at the clock again and debate how long you have until you have to rinse the smoke-smell out of your hair to make it to brunch. You think about making an excuse, but then you think about that smoked salmon benedict oozing with hollandaise sauce and the mimosa that is sure to cure your dehydration. The motivation makes you rise only 10 minutes later than you should have and on begins the process to your favorite occasion with the most likely of contexts:

1. You’re hung-over. And at least one of your friends will also be guzzling water down at the table and half sleeping on their arm.
2. You’ll all wear your sunglasses even if it’s completely grey outside.
3. Everyone will be super casual except for that one person who’s not hung-over.
4. You all secretly hate the one person who’s not hung-over as they cheerily talk about everything they’ve gotten done this morning.
5. One or more person says, “I’m never drinking again.”
6. Someone is always going to be late, and even though you were too, the later person is always the bigger infraction.
7. You all talk about your weekends and laugh about all the awkward conversations, terrible fashion choices, how bad your feet hurt, and who “Mike” is in someone’s phone.
8. You either scarf down the entire unhealthy meal brought out on your plate, or you stare at it sadly because the thought of food is still too overwhelming.
9. You all complain about how the waiter is not filling your unlimited mimosas quickly enough.
10. Someone ends up drinking too much mimosa.
11. Everyone complains about having to go to work the next day.
12. Someone asks if anyone has Advil.
13. You all talk a lot more than you did all weekend because everywhere else was too noisy so you likely just nodded and pretended you heard them.
14. You all say how much you love brunch and you should do it more often.
15. You realize the struggle out of bed is always worth it because the company you keep is so much better than the Netflix binge you debated.
16. But as soon as brunch is over you go nap and Netflix binge until Monday.