The Politics of Drinking - Part 2

Stealing booze from your parents was another effective method. When you did this, you had to make sure your parents didn’t put a mark on the bottle. This was the sure way of getting caught. And if they did put a little line to where the meniscus of whiskey was, you had to replace it with water. One thing I learned about this. Never steal booze from the freezer. I had a friend who replaced his depleted parent’s vodka with water. When they decided to make a martini, the bottle had frozen, so in essence they had a Stoli popsicle.

A disgusting part of the stealing method was that we would just mix up any type of booze. My method was I would grab an almost empty salad dressing container and pour it out. (Remember those things? It was a glass carafe that people would add a seasoning packet and then add Oil and Vinegar and wallah, Italian dressing!) After it was emptied, I would wash it out and then proceed to my parent’s Liquor Cabinet. Then I would just start adding booze to it. I would be very careful I didn’t take too much from one bottle and get snagged. Vodka, Run, Vermouth, Gin, Whiskey, whatever there was, would be poured in there. Sure it tasted like shit, but who cares it was Friday night and me and my High School pals were going to get a buzz on.

Sidebar. When I was in college there was a guy we called Big Fat, Frat Matt. Man could this guy party. His nickname did almost get me my assed kicked one night. A bunch of us went to a club in town and I wasn’t wearing my glasses. (I didn’t like the frames anymore. I looked like an older version of Ralphy from the movie, “A Christmas Story.) So from a distance I see the bouncer and he appears to be Matt. So I’m yelling, “Big Fat, Frat, Matt!” Well it wasn’t him and I had to talk my way out of that situation, which wasn’t easy. How do you explain to a guy that you look like his friend who you call fat? I think I told the guy he was in much better shape and had way more definition then Matt. Anyway this guy Matt was at a party one night and he was wasted. He had done shrooms and smoked some hash and was feeling no pain. So we decided to make him a drink. The thing is the drink was a Vodka and Italian Dressing on the rocks. I think he would have drank it but we were laughing so hard when he was about to take a sip that we blew it. That would have been classic if he had downed it and more classic if he liked the taste of it

To be continued...