Booze Booze Booze......

Today's post is about drinking. Why? Because I said so, that's why. (Typical mom answer, ask my kids.) I live in the Bible Belt. Here good Baptist churches teach us from the time we are little that smoking, drinking, cussing, and anything to do with sex are all evil evil sin. None of these things were ever allowed in our home when I was a child(Hm....probably why my parents divorced...). In fact, my mom's bowling league buddies used to tell stories of how they all went to some club while there were away on tournament, and my mom drank coke.

When I was nine, mom married step-dad and he drank a little. Kept beer in the frig and had a picture in the den that opened up and had little shot glasses and two decanters in it. One had bourbon. Which I smelled of once when he wasn't looking.

When I turned sixteen, and starting dating Satan who I later married, we went to his house one day and Satan's mother offered me a beer. I said, Wh-wh-wh-Huh? She laughed and asked had I never tried beer? I said no. So she got me one. I tasted. Yuck. Tastes like what I think pee would taste like if I was ever forced to drink it (I still hate beer.) So I filed that bit of information away, "I hate beer".

Later, as I continued to date Satan, he took me to a party where they had Boones Farm Strawberry Hill wine. For anyone who could possibly NOT know what that is, it's a cheapo wine that teenagers get when they can get someone to buy it for them. I tried it. A little yuck. Tried a little more. Not so bad. A little more. This stuff is pretty good. A little more...pretty soon the bottle was empty, and I couldn't understand why I couldn't stop laughing. So he took me home. Having the giggles and trying to get into your house without waking your parents is hard. Having the giggles and falling into furniture and trying not to wake your Grandmother who lives with you and knows EVERYTHING you think you got away with is worse. I got in bed finally, only to wake the next morning to "I HEARD you come in last night....A little late, huh?" I so badly wanted to say yeah and a little drunk but I didn't.

Also when I woke up that morning, I had the "Oh Lord, forgive me I got DRUNK! I can't believe I did THAT!" Inside, though, I thought it was pretty cool. But my conscience won out and I reformed. That was my only experience in my entire lifetime of ever being drunk (No kidding.)

When I married and had children, my husband would sometimes have a beer after mowing the grass, but I had children and I was a mother and mother's don't do that sort of thing! After Satan and I divorced, I decided I was almost forty and had never experienced ANYTHING. So one weekend my kids were all gone, don't remember where, and I went to the store and bought a four pack of wine coolers. I felt like a nun buying condoms, let me tell you. But I went home and drank two of them, konked out and slept really good. Drinking alone. What had I come to? Felt so guilty I poured the other two out and hid the bottles before my kids came home.

Then I started dating Mr. OldFart who was an old fart, but also bought me lot of things and had traveled all around the world and went to dinner parties and cocktail parties and liked buying me girl clothes and sparkly shoes to dress up in. He taught me all about wine. I learned which one goes with what and how to pronounce them. I was now a worldly woman. Still felt guilty though, but not as much. I learned to "have a glass of wine with dinner" which was so cool and I still love the idea of.

So then, eventually, I met Mr. Right, who I am married to now. Mr. Right met his first wife in high school, and was a bit of a party wild child until girlfriend told him it was the booze or her (her dad was an alcoholic) and he rarely has drunk since. I said, I like a glass of wine now and then. He said ok. So we'd go out to eat and I'd order dinner and a glass of wine and he'd order diet coke. And I felt like a heathen.

Still do. Every now and then we have egg nog at Christmas, and he has a taste, but that's it. So now I just look at wine and occasionally have a glass, and either he does look at me disapprovingly or I feel so guilty I imagine he does. Either way, it's a hindrance to me ever being a serious drinker. ha.Which is probably what God had in mind when he sent him to me. Otherwise, if He hadn't been watching out for me, I'd probably be in rehab now. Now where was God when I married Satan and Mr. Oldfart?

(Interesting fact since I just found out it's not like this everywhere:
Here, where I live, you can't buy alcoholic beverages on Sunday. Nor can you order an alcoholic drink in a restaurant. In fact, if you go out to breakfast late on a Sunday morning, you'll be the only ones there- every one else is at church)