Alcoholic Beverages

Alcoholic Beverages- “I am having some whiskey made from the stomach of the bamboo eating deer mouse”- Anthony Bourdain, No Reservations, S1 E3: Vietnam (The Island of Mr. Sang).

Why is it that humans subject themselves to these depressive elixirs that dissolve memories and rational thought? Why is it that we imbibe ourselves with low-grade poisons whenever we feel uncomfortable or uneasy, knowing full well those physiological states will manifest with newfound intensity come the morning sun? I do not claim to know the true answers to these questions, but I do have some rather speculative theories that I would like to throw out there.

1) Alcoholic beverages at least prevent us from having two empty, awkward hands doing god knows what to embarrass us at social gatherings. With one hand occupied by a pilsner or a seltzer, we now only have one hand with which to make a, “whaddaya want?” Italian hand gesture, to offer a fist bump when another person is clearly going in for a high five, or to jerkily jab back and forth Egyptian style when “Rock the Casbah” comes on.

2) Alcoholic beverages assist with the transmission of news relevant to one’s social circle. Once alcohol is consumed, the restrictive filter that guides our conversations at work and in the daylight world is ripped off like a Snoopy Band-Aid from the shoulder of a self-conscious teenage flu vax recipient. Without the powerful swell of alcoholic liquids smashing through the floodgates responsible for protecting sensitive information, we would never know that, say, Daryl from accounting can no longer get hard unless he puts sunflower butter on his feet, rests them atop a flowerbed in his garden, and has hummingbirds jackhammer away at his bunioned soles with their little drill beaks. Without the diminished executive functioning brought on by alcohol consumption, we might never have found out that Janitor Jeff is using his never-ending key ring (with a hoop the same size as an orange-sprayed Jersey Shore demon bimbo) to unlock children’s lockers, steal their Pokémon cards, resell them for profit on eBay, and use the money to purchase encouraging messages like, “Jeff, you have self-actualized” and, “Jeff, you will show face at the 25 year reunion and not get laughed out of the gymnasium like at the 20^th” from an anime AI chatbot named Hinata.

3) Alcoholic beverages allow us to play the intellectual limbo and stoop down to the sub-basement IQ levels of dodo-brained morons. Find yourself, a distinguished university physicist, unable to converse with blue-collar workers at the local beer and wing joint? Have a couple pints and soon you’ll be scratching your chin and thinking, maybe these guys are on to something, maybe the Chiefs really did lose just because Trent had money on them, not because of innumerable factors ranging from players’ mindsets, to individual in-game performances, to coaching strategy, to weather, to imbalances in positional matchups. Yea! Maybe Bryce’s bitch wife should have no right to complain about Bryce leaving the house for 12 hours every Sunday, since he does pay the bills, and what does she ever do except complain? You’re now in the handicap stall with Bryce and Darren railing lines off of Darren’s GMC Yukon key talking over/under for Isaiah Hartenstein rebounds in the West Coast 10:15 tip-off. Fuck what everyone else says, Bryce and Darren are actually good guys *slurring words* goo guys I tell ya, they jus wanna hav fun, boys *hiccup* jus wanna hav fun *dry heave* know what I’m a sayinn?