On drinking

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Drunk dialing Ralph on the porcelain phone

O the wonders and joys of drink! The epicurean delight to be had in a precisely-concocted formula of alcohol! The gastronomic pleasure inherent in every chilled sip and swallow! It is a consummation I shall never know. For I, dear friends and enemies, am an Abstainer. A teetotaler. A Man What Does Not Drink The Booze. Why? I’m glad you didn’t ask!

My earliest memory of alcohol is being offered beer by my then-stepfather. I was 12 years old. I looked at it (urine-like). I smelled it (stenchy). I rolled it about the glass (noisome). I took a sip. And… have you ever… eaten rotten, festering cardboard that’s been sitting in the backpack of a wetbrain hobo, alternatingly soaked by DT sweats and dried by the heat of his self-righteous indignation at the state of the world?

Better than that beer. I recommend it for whenever you’re in a terrible hurry to vomit.

So my first experience was formative. My next attempt at alcohol consumption came when I was 16 years of age, at a New Year’s Eve party. I was handed a glass of champagne by a pretty girl, and when that happens to you, you drink. In fact, I was so smitten by her that I failed to realize until it was too late that my hormone-addled brain had decided it was okay to release a swarm of fire ants into my esophagus. I only gradually became aware of this when I registered the look of alarm on the sweet girl’s face, followed by the sound of someone strangling a dyspeptic moose, which turned out to be me. The inability to breathe soon followed, joined by an unpleasant buzzing sensation in my head that sounded and felt like the world’s tiniest jackhammer being wielded by the cutest damned bee you’ve ever seen, cursing at me in Esperanto.

Eventually the whole suite of impressions died down, and I was left with a warmth in my stomach that was jealous of its space, rebuffing my every attempt to put anything else in there that might help with my sudden feelings of confusion and nausea. When I was finally able to speak again, I saw that the girl in front of me looked worried. Still hoping that I could salvage some shred of dignity, and perhaps steal away with her to a less-populated area of the party for muchas smooches, I summoned up my last reserves of suaveitude and looked her in the eyes. “Smooth,” I croaked.

You can see a pattern here, I think. Some of you might be thinking, “Well, drinking, like smoking and perhaps serial killing, is something that you just have to keep doing until you get used to it.” You might be right. That which doesn’t kill you… leaves you debilitated and in a coma. Look, it’s not as though I don’t “get” the drinking thing. It looks like great fun to sample all these different flavors, and reap the relaxation and loss of inhibition that comes with inebriation. I mean, just looking at Drinks After Dark makes me really yearn for a new hobby. And I live in San Francisco, one of the great Foodie meccas of the world! If I can’t do my experimentation here, I can’t do it anywhere!

But sadly, my body just seems to find alcohol – in whatever strength – poisonous. I’ve tried, oh how I’ve tried! There was that one time a “friend” handed to me something that smelled JUST like a vanilla shake, a drink of which I’m enamoured. Of course he neglected to mention that it was alcoholic, which should have been obvious to me by the way that it conducted electricity and glowed with a fierce crimson light. But, you know, vanilla. You know? So I took a hearty swig. For the record, let me just say this:

I love gravity. I think it’s great the way it keeps me and all of my toys from floating into space. However, I’m not such a fan of it when it decides it’s time to force me to make out with the floor. Remember that old game “stop hitting yourself”? It’s like that, only with a lot more swearing. A LOT more.

Now, I’m not sure exactly why alcohol affects me the way it does. I suspect my mother had a run-in with an old Gypsy woman before I was born, causing her offspring to be cursed. Fortunately for me, the Gypsy was a little unclear with the stipulations of the curse when she said “Afflicted by spirits”. But, you know, it’s too late now, no do-overs in the world of Gypsy curses! Could be a lot worse. I could’ve ended up like Haley Joel Osment and see dead folks everywhere. And it wouldn’t be the cool dead dudes, either, like Jimmy Hendrix, or Jim Henson, or… Benjamin Disraeli. No. Instead, it’d be that annoying woman down the street who always yelled at you for walking across her lawn when you were a kid. Or the high school gym teacher who always picked on you with screams of “C’mon, I said HUSTLE!” Oh man, can you imagine a crowd of loud, obnoxious creatures following you around all day making life miserable? It’d be like… being Octomom. Haha! ZING! Who says I can’t be relevant and edgy!

But I digress. The next time you have a drink of your favorite liquor, please think of the children. And by “children”, I mean me. Poor little Akela, standing alone at a party, clutching his glass of Coke to himself, watching with hungry eyes the rest of the room mingle, dance, flirt, and generally have some worry-free fun, fueled by free-flowing libations. Do him favor. Send a cute drunk girl over to him. There’s something to be said for the “contact high”, especially when it leads to a next morning of recriminations and awkward disentanglements. Thank you, alcohol! Awwwwwwww, YEAH.

Why can’t we not be sober?
I just want to start this over
Why can’t we sleep forever?
I just want to start this over
-- "Sober", Tool