The other day I was at the liquor store, shopping for the ingredients for my world famous sangria, when I passed a bottle of Goldschlager on the shelf.
Suddenly, I became very nostalgic and floods of memories of liquor runs past came rushing back to me in waves.
It seemed that each bottle had a memory and a great (or horrible) story attached to it. I have decided to chronicle my experiences with a few of these bottles of booze in a series entitled "Time in a Bottle."
I'll start with a classic, Southern Comfort. As I the gazed at the old fashioned bottle full of amber liquid, I was transported back to the summer after my freshman year of high school. A bunch of kids in my neighborhood were wandering around aimlessly goofing around when my friend's older brother ran into some bushes in the back of his house and pulled out a brown paper bag. The bag contained none other than a big old bottle of SoCo.
I didn't miss a beat. We ripped the top off the bottle and proceeded to swig down the bottle in no time flat. No peer pressure here, I couldn't WAIT to chug down as much of that nasty brown liquid as I could get my greedy little hands on.
Things get a little hazy, but do have vague recollections of sitting on my friend's brothers lap, staggering around and then sneaking upstairs to my room before my parents saw me.
My next memory is the room spinning, trying to get out of bed and then vomiting into my trash can next to my bed.
Needless to say, I was a mess. I weighed less than a 100 lbs and I had consumed almost half a bottle of warm bourbon in less than half an hour.
Unfortunately, I didn't get away with it. My parents returned from an evening out with their friends to find their 14 year old daughter passed out on the bed with a trash can full of puke next to her.
All I remember hearing is my mom's voice. "Billy, she's drunk."
My dad attempted to reprimand me, but I was in no shape to defend myself, or even feel remorse. UNTIL THE NEXT MORNING.
At 7 am SHARP, I was rudely awakened by my father who announced that we would spend the day doing yard work, in the hot sun. It was hell. Sheer hell. To add to it, I was grounded for 2 weeks, which for me at that age, was the worst possible thing that could ever happen to me. To sit at home knowing that everyone else was out having a great time wandering around the neighborhood doing nothing, KILLED me.
And now, 30 years later, I still can't get near a bottle of bourbon, without having my stomach contract. That stuff is nasty.
I will end this post with a prayer.
To be continued...
Suddenly, I became very nostalgic and floods of memories of liquor runs past came rushing back to me in waves.
It seemed that each bottle had a memory and a great (or horrible) story attached to it. I have decided to chronicle my experiences with a few of these bottles of booze in a series entitled "Time in a Bottle."
I'll start with a classic, Southern Comfort. As I the gazed at the old fashioned bottle full of amber liquid, I was transported back to the summer after my freshman year of high school. A bunch of kids in my neighborhood were wandering around aimlessly goofing around when my friend's older brother ran into some bushes in the back of his house and pulled out a brown paper bag. The bag contained none other than a big old bottle of SoCo.
I didn't miss a beat. We ripped the top off the bottle and proceeded to swig down the bottle in no time flat. No peer pressure here, I couldn't WAIT to chug down as much of that nasty brown liquid as I could get my greedy little hands on.
Things get a little hazy, but do have vague recollections of sitting on my friend's brothers lap, staggering around and then sneaking upstairs to my room before my parents saw me.
My next memory is the room spinning, trying to get out of bed and then vomiting into my trash can next to my bed.
Needless to say, I was a mess. I weighed less than a 100 lbs and I had consumed almost half a bottle of warm bourbon in less than half an hour.
Unfortunately, I didn't get away with it. My parents returned from an evening out with their friends to find their 14 year old daughter passed out on the bed with a trash can full of puke next to her.
All I remember hearing is my mom's voice. "Billy, she's drunk."
My dad attempted to reprimand me, but I was in no shape to defend myself, or even feel remorse. UNTIL THE NEXT MORNING.
At 7 am SHARP, I was rudely awakened by my father who announced that we would spend the day doing yard work, in the hot sun. It was hell. Sheer hell. To add to it, I was grounded for 2 weeks, which for me at that age, was the worst possible thing that could ever happen to me. To sit at home knowing that everyone else was out having a great time wandering around the neighborhood doing nothing, KILLED me.
And now, 30 years later, I still can't get near a bottle of bourbon, without having my stomach contract. That stuff is nasty.
I will end this post with a prayer.
Please sweet Jesus. I know I haven't always been a good person, but PLEASE spare me having to find one of my daughters in this predicament. I pray that my daughters have inherited my husband's "good boy" gene and not their mother's "bad girl" gene. Are there any geneticists reading this? If so, please tell me. Which gene is dominant?
To be continued...