alcohol

Interview with a purple bunny—a dangerous product of evolution

My Fellow Inebriates,

One of my secondary addictions is a Facebook game called Wrestler Unstoppable. My Wrestler avatar, LB the Alcoholic Bear, is part of stable of fighters called BEARS!!!! (including not just bears but other marginalized characters such as serial killers, hitchhikers, headhunters, people ostensibly involved with bears, and a savage purple rabbit. My avatar does okay, but he’s nothing compared to Violent, Vicious Purplebunny, AKA my friend Violet Purplebunny. I’ve known and feared Violet for a number of years now. I even introduced her to Wrestler, only to be dominated ever after. With bunny season around the corner, she kindly agreed to an interview.

LB: Tell me a bit about your everyday life, Violet.

VP: Typical bunny stuff, LB. Similar to your life really—two kids, lots of action. Some would say abuse, some would say love…even adoration.

LB: Especially at this time of year, I’d think. Bunnies get a lot of attention around Easter. Why do you think that is, Violet?

VP: Hell if I know.

LB: Do you think it’s because rabbits breed prolifically in spring?

VP: Well, I guess we do. You see a lot of them around. I saw a dead one under the bush outside a little while back. Cat must’ve got it.

LB: OMG. How did that make you feel?

VP: Oh, I dunno. I thought about showing it to the kids. Then I figured maybe not. It had been gored and all.

LB: Have you ever needed to be sewn?

VP: Couple of times.

LB: What about the washing machine?

VP: Ohh yeah.

LB: I think, for animals like us, the washing machine is our Room 101.

VP: If that means it’s really freaking cold and nauseating, then you’re right.

LB: I mean by Room 101 that it represents that deepest, darkest corner where our worst fears reside.

VP: Well, not really, when I could be gored by a cat.

LB: Have you ever lost a friend to predation? A rabbit friend?

VP: Nope. Well, we all kind of stay inside like you, LB. And the only other rabbit in the house is Pink Bunny who, to tell you the real honest truth, is kind of a bitch.

LB: Really?

VP: Even the kids think so. Pink Bunny talks smack. She’s a Jellycat bunny from Chapters. Cost thirty bucks or so. I think I was $4. I’m still the queen though.

LB: Have you ever lost a friend to rabies?

VP: Sometimes I think you have rabies. No, I haven’t. Not yet.

LB: So what are your worst fears?

VP: I don’t have any fears.

LB: Seriously.

VP: Seriously. Anyone messes with me, I will mess them up.

LB: Kids too?

VP: Kids especially.

LB: Your Wrestler Unstoppable avatar is pretty tough.

VP: Yes, she is. She’s having a tough week though. That game is hard. I give it up every once in a while. But it always sucks me back.

LB: Yeah, me too. It’s like alcohol. Do you have any addictions, Violet?

VP: Just Wrestler. And crack.

LB: Not Walmart-style crack?

VP: Ha! No, but I subscribe to the People of Walmart. And there’s a lot of ass crack in my life. The other day one of the kids was getting off the toilet and into the bath—without wiping—and she had this big slug-like ooze of crap sliding down her leg. She was gonna take that right with her into the bathwater.

LB: OMG!

VP: Yeah, and her mother caught her just in time. And then the next day the kid saw her mother bending over to pick something up and she said: “Mummy, your bum is showing and there’s no poo on it.”

LB: Awesome. They’re amazing, kids.

VP: Yeah, I spend a lot of time hiding from them.

LB: So they’d be a fear for you?

VP: Well, no. Not exactly. More like an aversion.

LB: Aw, Violet, you like them. I know you do.

VP: NO, I DON’T!

LB: Everybody thinks of bunnies as soft, cuddly, gentle creatures.

VP: Ever read Watership Down?

LB: What about the Easter Bunny, though? The Easter Bunny is the most benevolent rabbit ever, wouldn’t you say?

VP: Well, maybe at Easter. We’ve no idea what he does the rest of the year.

LB: What do you think he does?

VP: You know, bunny stuff. Mates. Eats his poo. Eats his young once in a while.

LB: Harsh!

VP: Bunnies often eat their young. You know, for the minerals.

LB: HOW DO YOU KNOW YOU NEED THE MINERALS?

VP: Take a pill, LB. We just…know.

LB: Oh. Have you ever eaten your young?

VP: Like I’d tell you in this political climate. GOP politicians are lobbying for sperm to have personhood. How do you think they’d react to me devouring a brood of baby bunnies?

LB: You could always invoke moral relativism or some such principle.

VP: Moral what?

LB: Relativism. You’d be a natural… Don’t worry about it, forget I said it.

VP: Not that I’m admitting anything.

LB: Oh. Then what’s the strangest thing you ever ate?

VP: Vegemite.

LB: Why do rabbits eat their poo?

VP: Aw, come on, you can’t ask me that.

LB: Wikipedia says rabbits pass “two distinct types of feces: hard droppings and soft black viscous pellets, the latter of which are immediately eaten. Rabbits reingest their own droppings…to digest their food further and extract sufficient nutrients.”

VP: So?

LB: So what kind of adaptation is that?

VP: What do you mean?

LB: I mean why did rabbits evolve that way?

VP: Evolution is random, LB, you know that.

LB: I know. But what do you say to all those people who think you were designed that way? You know, the Intelligent Design argument?

VP: Well, it’s not very freaking intelligent, is it?

LB: You said it, Violet, not me.

VP: It’s not! I mean, what the fuck? You know why it’s like this? It’s because rabbits can’t vomit; they’re incapable of it. So they can’t chuck their food up the way cows do and then chew it up again. If they could they would, believe you me. But they can’t puke, so they have to do that secondary digestive bit the hard way. And it’s embarrassing, so rabbits do it really quickly. As soon as those soft pellets come out, they gobble them right up again. Usually in the morning.

LB: Wow.

VP: I mean, who would design it like that? What kind of creator would make it that way? Unless he wanted to laugh at the rabbits.

LB: Ha! Silly rabbits! So you subscribe not to Intelligent Design then but to Darwinian evolution?

VP: Yes.

LB: In which case, why did you evolve to eat your poo?

VP: Oh, for crying out loud, LB, evolution is random. Some mutant strain of rabbit emerged that liked eating its crap. That strain extracted more nutrition. It got stronger, bigger, was more favorable to mate with.

LB: Only with some Listerine involved!

VP: Shut up, LB. You’re familiar with evolution, I don’t have to tell you this. The stronger, healthier rabbits became the dominant genetic strain, and eventually they took over.

LB: So the poo-eating rabbits came to dominate.

While not a creationist, Violet obviously espouses moral relativism and probably a bunch of other dangerous ideas. She doesn’t have a clue who Orwell was.

VP: Whatever, LB. What else do you want to talk about?

LB: Fine, um, okay. Do you know the Easter Bunny? Are you acquainted with him?

VP: No. I mean, not really; he felt me up once. Everybody asks me that because I’m purple. Next.

LB: So you can’t hook me up with him?

VP: No.

LB: But I want to learn how to make liqueur-filled easter eggs.

VP: Tough shit.

LB: Do you have a soft, sensitive side that you don’t show very often?

VP: No.

LB: Okay, then. Last question—What do you think of rabbit fur in fashion?

VP: I like it.

How the lottery can help build a kickass bar…or not

Okay, it seemed like a reasonable gambit. Ordinarily I’d suggest my parents blow the entire paycheque on booze. I thought the idea of leveraging the money via the lottery was really quite clever.

But my parents ignored me!

I thought they were being dickheads again, campaigning against my happiness.

Like most people, they buy the occasional lottery ticket. Why shouldn’t they buy more lottery tickets, then? Imagine: we could multiply our Lotto 6/49 chances by 10 or even a hundred, and then we’d be awash in booze. The booze of winners!

The Lotto Max jackpot is currently at $20 million—enough for the kickass bar of our dreams…the sort of bar the kids could brag about to their friends at elementary.

When I asked my mum about it, she said she feels like an idiot when she buys a lottery ticket. The only thing that allows her to do it is the knowledge that millions of other Canadians are doing the exact same thing without feeling like idiots. Just for a moment that $5 or even $10 seems like small change beside the chance at new cars, new clothes, new furniture, massive televisions, killer sound systems, whiter teeth, Botox, vacations, cruises—you name it.

Oh yeah, and all the philanthropy they could engage in! We mustn’t forget that, because wasting your money on a lottery ticket involves digging for justifications, the biggest of which is that you deserve to win.

But can you win? I decided to school myself a bit.

Winners who beat 14,000,000:1 odds!

The average North American spends $1000 per year on lottery tickets and recoups a thirtieth, at best, of that with minor wins. Wow! That’s over $900 in spilt money. That’s ten very nice whiskies, 50 decent bottles of wine, or 40 cases of beer. OMG!

So maybe lottery tickets aren’t such a hot idea. Why do people buy them?

If you went to an investment advisor with $1000, you wouldn’t sink that money in a fund that promised to swallow your capital and give you $30-$40 back. Duh. But despite the statistical fact of abysmal returns, we continue to do this very thing at the lottery stand.

Canada’s most popular lottery, the 6/49, carries odds of almost 14 million to one. A toonie doesn’t seem like a big risk. One toonie twice a week=$208 per year, which is fine for anyone who doesn’t mind sacrificing five bottles of Belvedere and getting a mickey of Alberta Pure in return.

If only we were that restrained, though. And actually Canadians are a little more restrained than US citizens—we spend about $600 a year. Which still isn’t restrained—we’re not just spending a toonie on the 6/49; we’re also getting sucked in by scratch’n’wins and the astronomically long odds (28 million to one) of the Lotto Max.

Who’s doing all this buying? It isn’t everyone. Plenty of people walk past the stand without being tempted. Their $0 purchases contribute to the national average—which puts in perspective the lottery addict who spends ten minutes a time at the stand hand-selecting scratch tickets and boring the shit out of the clerk. The Lottery People are closely related to the People of Walmart; they have specific characteristics, not necessarily including visible ass crack but often involving body odor and decrepitude. They like to have rambling one-way conversations with captive listeners such as lottery stand attendants, and they are singularly oblivious of people in line behind them.

The Lottery People actually save us money sometimes. My mother, who already feels like an idiot whenever she buys a ticket, is too embarrassed to stand for more than a minute in the line-up and will bolt rather than be exposed for longer in the queue. While there, she looks furtively around. If someone chit-chats with her, she makes a point of snickering about her own silly purchase and calling it the Idiot Tax. If the kids are with her, she tells them lotteries are stupid and that we don’t do this very often. Yes, my mother has some inner conflict to work out, but she won’t be able to afford a psychologist if she continues buying lottery tickets.

Considerably better odds than government lotteries 😉

Sadly, having less money often translates into buying more tickets. Statistically, lower-income earners hand over more cash for tickets, perhaps because lotteries seem like their only chance to attain wealth.

This represents a striking dichotomy between realism (slim chances of mobility) and utter unrealism (the odds of winning are substantially smaller than the odds of dying from necrotizing fasciitis).

Plenty of things are more likely than winning the lottery:

  • Dying in a plane crash: one in 400,000
  • Drowning: one in 88,000
  • Being struck by lightning: one in 500,000
  • Contracting herpes: one in 950
  • Getting attacked by a bear in Yellowstone Park: one in 2 million

Wow, all those things suck!

So what should my parents buy instead of lottery tickets? Ahhh!

  • Instead of playing 6/49 for a year: two bottles of Glenfarclas 17
  • Instead of Lotto Max for a year: one bottle of Ardbeg 18

Between Glenfarclas for sure and wealth maybe, I’ll take the Glenfarclas.

After another nudge, my parents finally responded.

OMG! They really are opposed to my happiness.

Wow, that worm is totally dead

My Fellow Inebriates,

For a long time I thought the worm in our little bottle of mescal was just hibernating, or that it was some sort of aquatic worm enjoying a swimming medium much more awesome than ordinary water. But I’ve noticed, having checked up on it periodically for four or five years, that it’s not moving. And I don’t think it’s asleep.

How did it come to be in there? It’s a mystery, isn’t it? Just like a ship in a bottle, I commented to my mother, who pedantically pointed out the relative skill involved in constructing a model of an intricate sailing vessel inside a bottle as opposed to dropping moth larvae through a hole.

These ones aren't for mescal; they're for eating.

So it didn’t decide to be in there? Certainly not, it turns out. It’s not as though mescal and tequila producers have to turn away lineups of insect aspirants to bottom-dwelling alcoholic glory; on the contrary, bottlers put them in there as a gimmick. The larvae enjoy eating the agave plant, which is used to make mescal. In fact, tons of those little suckers end up in the agave brew during production and are credited with imparting some of the famous nastiness that characterizes mescal. (Old mescal recipes call for a chicken/turkey breast to be placed in the mash during fermentation but presumably larvae are more cost-effective, since they’re along for the ride anyway.)

Mescal is so famously nasty that bartenders have struggled to incorporate it into palatable drinks. While it enjoyed a stunt-style college popularity for many years, which had more to do with the worm than its smoky, off-putting flavor, mescal has failed to capture more sophisticated market share.

Nor does it have a signature drink the way tequila does the margarita and rum the daiquiri. Why is that?

Well, I would certainly tell you if I could get my little bear-sized bottle open. But my sources tell me it tastes like ass. In fact, one of our family’s medical-type friends advises against drinking it because it will make us sick. That’s all very well for my parents, who have work and childcare obligations, but there’s no reason I shouldn’t sample it.

Bottled gusano, ready to be added to mescal bottles

But back to the worm, which isn’t a worm but the larva of a butterfly. Bright coral naturally, its mescal bath leaches the color out of it, turning it pale pink or off-white. Despite the misconception that all mescal brands include dead arthropods, only those from Oaxaca feature the bugs. And whether or not they impart a desirable flavor, one thing’s sure: they’re not an ancient tradition. Mescal has been bottled con gusano only since 1950, when Mexican entrepreneur Jacobo Lozano Paez tapped into the time-honored marketing tactic of reconceptualizing a liability (caterpillar infestation of agave plants) as a benefit—suckering untold millions of American college students into chugging not only his vile-tasting mescal but chowing down on deceased larvae to boot. Sure, those larvae have reputed aphrodisiacal effects, but OMG, so do bananas and asparagus, people.

Which doesn’t change the fact that I want to get this little blue bottle of mine open. Can you believe it? My parents actually gave it to me several years ago for Christmas—my very own bottle. And they won’t open it for me.

Dickheads.