what is the word

Last nite was a lot of money flowing, a lot of unnecessary cab rides, a lot of extra bags & extra drinks & extra kisses nobody really needed. It felt eternal & wasteful & eternally wasteful, but when you boil it down it really adds up to 2 shitty bars & gathering around the bong at 5 a.m.
I could already feel the panic descending, knowing how much I would regret it, wondering when I would ever learn that enough was enough & when I would ever stop being so dumb anyway -- all those words that sometimes run around my head so much they don’t mean anything to me, really, anyway.
About the time we were gathered round the little red bong a friend of ours came to join us. He’d been working all nite so he was completely sober. He examined the coffee table; the top of it was dusted with a fine powder.
“Have you guys been doing coke?” he said.
The general consensus was yes.
Someone started sweeping the powder together with a card; it was enough for an ok-sized bump.
“But that isn't coke,” another friend pointed out. “That’s Emergen-C.” We’d tried to drink some earlier in preparation for the next day, & some of it had spilled out of the packet.
I laughed. “You’re right,” I said. “Anyway, we finished all the coke before we even got here.”
But no one was listening to us. They were intent on prepping the powder for ingestion. We must have said it was Emergen-C three times but no one was listening. Finally we just shut up about it. The sober guy was trying to lean in over the bump but he couldn’t get it that way.
“Here,” I said, deciding I may as well be helpful. “I've got a bill.”
So I sat there rolling a dollar with exaggerated care. My co-conspirator & I kept looking at each other & giggling. We weren’t being very sly but it wasn't as if anyone even noticed.
“Here you go,” I said, handing the bill over with a smile. It was even tighter, more perfectly rolled than usual.
He snorted it up quick, & after he was done the girl next to me swept her finger across the powdery surface of the table & rubbed it across her gums.
I couldn’t hold it in any longer.
“So, is that making your gums numb?” I asked her.
“No, not really,” she said.
“That’s because it’s Emergen-C,” I said.
This time it sunk in. They were both shocked. “Why didn’t you tell us?” they wanted to know. We told them we’d tried several times. We laughed about it for ages. We kept bringing it up. The guy who had snorted it was annoyed & his nose was probably burning too. We suggested he try snorting water to see if it would fizz.
“Very funny,” he said to me. “Why don’t you just blog about it or something?”
“Maybe I will,” I said.
End copy.