alcohol

4 drinks (or is it 5?) to make that Hitler birthday party a success

As much as I doubt any of my fellow inebriates would celebrate Adolf Hitler’s birthday today, I thought I’d better provide some booze suggestions for any party planners drifting through this space today. After all,  if you fit into any of the celebratory categories listed below, you probably need some help.

As impossible as it was to find beverages commensurate with the occasion and/or the ideological enthusiasm involved, I do have a few choice reviews that might do in a pinch for anyone wearing a party hat labeled Mein Führer. Without further ado, the categories:

  1. You believe the Holocaust did not happen.

    CATEGORY 1
    Offensive but impossible to take seriously

     

  2. You do believe the Holocaust happened, and you think it was awesome.

    CATEGORY 2
    Redolent of chicken coop

     

  3. You entertain both premises simultaneously while you await evidence not yet provided by 60 years of historical scholarship.

    CATEGORY 3
    For people with incongruous tastes and ideas

     

  4. In addition to evincing skepticism about the Holocaust (while applauding it), you dispute evolution, anthropogenic global warming, and the Big Bang, along with the absurd corollary that the earth exceeds 6,000 years of age.

    CATEGORY 4
    For those who need no assistance with mind alteration

     

I trust the selected doubleplusgood beverages will capture and reflect your enchantment with Hitler, not to mention get you into a mellow space to appreciate this video of the late Christopher Hitchens effortlessly disemboweling both John Metzger and his dad. Cheers.

And because, let’s face it, I’ve been monumentally unfair to the undeserving brewers and vintners depicted above*…a bonus beverage.

Bottoms up, Neo-Nazis!

*who have, to my knowledge, absolutely no association or sympathy with the neo-Nazi movement

Banana schnapps it ain’t—P’s amoxicillin tastes like ass

My Fellow Inebriates,

What would YOU do if you woke up and found this on the breakfast table?

Damn straight, I slammed that shooter back.

Only it wasn’t a shooter. It was Miss P’s amoxicillin.

While I was retching…

Mum: P, you took your medicine already! I didn’t even have to ask you. Good job!

Innocent smile from P.

LB: WTF was that? OMG, that was the worst shooter I ever had!

Mum: Amoxicillin. P, did you take this medicine?

V: Mummy, what’s LB doing? Silly LB! Is LB throwing up?

Mum: P, did you give your medicine to LB?

P: No.

This was true.

Mum: So you just shot this back, LB? Dude.

LB: What the hell was in that? OMG, seriously, you’re making P take this 21 times?

Mum: Well, 20 now, since you’ve taken one of them.

P: I don’t mind sharing.

LB: Holy shit, what flavor is that supposed to be? That wasn’t like any shooter at any bar that I’ve ever had ever! OMG!

V: It’s banana, yellow banana.

LB: OMFG! So will it at least give me a buzz?

Mum: No. All it will do is alert any bad microbes you have of amoxicillin’s antimicrobial properties, enabling them to develop resistance and evolve into a stronger strain. So thanks for nothing, buddy.

But P was clearly happy yours truly had taken the bullet. Even though she still had to take another dose, she was that much closer to the end of the bottle.

After a nasty experience like this morning’s, I need a proper banana shooter.

Living life at 11

My Fellow Inebriates,

Everyone at my dad’s work recently took a psych test to define their top 5 leadership strengths. I know he won’t mind if I share his private results.

  1. LEARNER. People like my dad enjoy studying things even more than they like knowing things or being recognized for knowing things. They simply like digging through information. This is why it takes my dad so long to buy a bottle of wine.
  2. STRATEGIC. People like my dad are good at seeing through clutter. This is excellent, because we have a lot. We were actually on the short list for a Canadian reality TV show called Consumed, but my mum took mercy on my dad and didn’t send the show’s scout our very worst pictures of clutter, which meant they turned to other, apparently messier people. I think the show missed out on some pretty good reality TV subjects. My parents talk openly to bears, and I would have made sure to get in on the filming. My parents would have looked ridiculous. But as far as traits go, being STRATEGIC is useful. It means my dad can tolerate shopping in places like Winners, which my mum can’t. And he doesn’t mind having a ton of empties around, which means I have somewhere to curl up when I feel sad.
  3. ANALYTICAL. People like my dad seek objective reality and tend to challenge unfounded assertions. They are a real killjoy at Charismatic Renewal meetings, although they don’t mind funerals if there’s some booze around. They have to be really tactful at work or they’ll end up alienating people by constantly demanding proof of concept. And again, it makes them really slow in the liquor store.
  4. ACHIEVER. Achievers feel as though every day starts at zero. Funny enough, so do alcoholic bears.
  5. SELF-ASSURANCE. According to my dad’s confidential results, this is better than self-confidence. It means he doesn’t just exhibit confidence; he carries it inside. This is a quality that alcoholic bears do not possess. If I had self-assurance I bet I could find my package. But without self-assurance, I keep letting people mock me into believing it’s not there to find.

I wanted to do the same personality test my dad did for work, but would you believe it? It was a special test that could be done only once with a special code from a book my dad had to read first. What a racket! Somebody’s got a good money-making idea there: make a huge company buy thousands of books and force its employees into subscription-based personality testing, no doubt as a lead-up to some sort of team-building exercise orchestrated by the same people who sold the company the books. This is why I’m just an idiot bear, people. I don’t know how to think up this kind of shit.

So I did this free test instead:

Check it out! I got an 11. I always suspected I was living life at 11.

Nigel Tufnel

The numbers all go to eleven. Look, right across the board, eleven, eleven, eleven and…

Marty DiBergi

Oh, I see. And most amps go up to ten?

Nigel Tufnel

Exactly.

Marty DiBergi

Does that mean it’s louder? Is it any louder?

Nigel Tufnel

Well, it’s one louder, isn’t it? It’s not ten. You see, most blokes, you know, will be playing at ten. You’re on ten here, all the way up, all the way up, all the way up, you’re on ten on your guitar. Where can you go from there? Where?

Marty DiBergi

I don’t know.

Nigel Tufnel

Nowhere. Exactly. What we do is, if we need that extra push over the cliff, you know what we do?

Marty DiBergi

Put it up to eleven.

Nigel Tufnel

Eleven. Exactly. One louder.

Marty DiBergi

Why don’t you just make ten louder and make ten be the top number and make that a little louder?

Nigel Tufnel

[pause] These go to eleven.

—This is Spinal Tap