My Fellow Inebriates,

I had no idea what Cyber Monday was until I googled it today. When you spend as much time messed up and glazed over as I do, a term like that could mean anything. Doesn’t it evoke Terminator-like images of cyborgs yanking us out of bed Monday morning, hungover, to make us work? Holy shit, Cyber Monday sounds like the freaking end of the world.

Well, it really is. Cyber Monday is the biggest online shopping day of the year. It’s the day for all those folks who would normally put on their favorite shopping outfits and go to Walmart…to instead stay home in their jammies, skivvies or birthday suits racking up their credit cards in cyberspace.

So I guess in a way Cyber Monday is a blessing for those of us with eyeballs already sore from a hard night of carousing.

So how do I get in on Cyber Monday? As you can imagine, I’ve been denied all credit card privileges by my purportedly responsible parents. My PayPal account has $0.02 in it. It hasn’t occurred to anyone to email me money lately either. So it looks like I’m shut out of this marvelous occasion (with its impressive six-year history). Holy crap, what do I do?

First of all, what was I thinking of buying? My friend Blackie Bear got me thinking of some Crown Royal when he sent me some tasting notes:

Yeah, I like a bit of Crown, Crown Royal you know, sometimes when I’m sitting on the couch watching a show or whatever. I like to mix it with like gingerale or something like that. And you know, just sip it slowly. It kind of takes the edge off, cuz I have some worries, dude, you know, like the way there are no girl bears around and stuff. I’d kind of like to meet a girl bear and we could watch TV together and cuddle. We could share snacks.

Awesome! I love Blackie Bear; he’s totally one of my posse, and I find his tasting notes incredibly descriptive and informative. You all know I don’t have any Crown Royal of course, but I do remember what it tastes like.

Crown Royal was introduced by Seagram in 1939 to honor stuttering King George, who was visiting with his woman Queen Elizabeth.

It’s a great thing being a royal, or any type of celebrity for that matter. You get all kinds of swag and rarely have to pay for anything. A little royal blood would help my friend Blackie, for instance, since he doesn’t have a job and is enamored mostly with his couch lately. Cyber Monday is really designed for us shut-ins who don’t have much going on but feel an itch to charge something on our credit cards. Those of us who have credit cards, that is.

I told Blackie he could stretch his dollar by having Canadian Club for a while but he disagreed without articulating any reasons why. So I’ll try to help:

Crown Royal is a deep golden color, with a nose of caramel, oaky rye and ever-so-slight apricot. A smooth sipper, it nevertheless has a playful bite. It’s a lovely team player with mixers and with other alcohols. Fit for a king indeed.

Canadian Club hits the tastebuds with astringency and bitterness, clouting you with mineral spice and overwhelming rye. I love it with gingerale but I wouldn’t drink it straight unless I didn’t have any gingerale.

So what kind of deals can I get on rye today?

Googling “Cyber Monday deals on rye” got me some wicked deals on breathalyzers such as the AlcoHawk, for people who always want some alcohol in their systems but are concerned enough to keep a measure on it. Kudos for caring. You really don’t want to get into your car after sitting on Blackie’s couch drinking Crown Royal. But then again, you don’t really want to stay the night with him either.