My Fellow Inebriates,
It was “friend night” at Brownies, and Miss P got an invitation from her BFF. She was so excited that she ran all the way to the meeting. When it was over, she begged to join.
This confirms a household suspicion about Brownies: it is a cult. Think—what other sorts of events lure you in via the buddy system? An already-brainwashed friend invites you along…
- Timeshares
- Anthony Robbins–style self-help seminars
- Scientology
comics.feedtacoma.com
Good grief—if only AA meetings were as compelling as any of these. They leave you feeling abject—like something’s missing from your life that only that special group of special people can supply. Without it you’re empty, bereft. Seriously, you could attend an AA meeting and walk out of it with a shrug (how good is cake without kirsch, anyway?) but Brownies? OMG, P is rabid to join Brownies.
Yesterday fairies, sprites, and pixies were the stuff of books she’s not that keen to read anyway. Today Miss P would yank out another tooth for the privilege of dancing around a toadstool, selling Dad overpriced cookies, and earning badges for such accomplishments as putting her underwear in the hamper or breathing air. Holy crap, it looks like Brownies is in our future.
How much does Brownies cost? Like the web page is gonna tell you. L. Ron Hubbard wouldn’t tell you up front. The info is nowhere to be seen on the website. As with scientology, we’re going to endure some face time with entities such as Snowy Owl, Purple Owl, and Horny Owl getting the sales pitch on what essential skills P now lacks that cannot be gleaned anywhere else.
Desperate to know how much money we’ll need to divert from liquor to Brownies, I queried another source. Apparently Brownies costs more per year than a very good bottle of Scotch, and they hit you up for $2 every time you attend. Never mind the multiple cases of cookies we’ll end up buying when my parents are too busy/lazy to trot P around the neighborhood pleading with people to pony up $5 a box.
So this is all very dire. Let’s hope it makes P happy.
A toast, therefore, with something almost undrinkable: TAKARA SHO CHIKU BAI SAKE. No mistake about it, this California sake is rough stuff. Fail to heat it sufficiently and its vulgarity will hit you as full-frontally as two nauseating parents who forget to shut the door. You want this stuff almost hot so you can’t taste it, but not hot enough that you’re sacrificing booze unnecessarily to the angels (who might barf it back at you—if I were an angel with a sake predilection I’d hang out over Japan, for crying out loud, not California).
Liquorstore Bear 