My New Drinking Buddies

I didn’t hesitate for a minute when I saw the Drinking Buddies Drink markers. 

 

 

Six miniature men with names engraved on their Speedos.

 

So stinkin’ adorable.

 

I slipped one on Dave’s Diet Coke.  “What the hell is this?” he asked.  

 

“It’s Cody.  One of my Drinking Buddies.”

 

“I don’t want that hanging on my glass,” he said as he handed him back to me.

 

“You want Mitch, instead?” I offered, beginning to amuse myself.

 

“I hope you didn’t pay money for those things.   What are they for anyhow?”

 

“Drink Markers.  So we don’t get our glasses mixed up.”

 

 

“Oh, really”, he responded, “Do you really think that's necessary?”

 

He just doesn’t know how to have fun.  I started assembling the guys around the top of my wine glass.  They were all looking into the glass. 

 

 

Which inspired me.  I have a denture ice cube tray.  I can hear Brad now, "Look, Josh!  Is that somebody's false teeth floating in Lou's wine glass?"

 

Or maybe my fake fly.  Like Alanis Morisette: A fly in my Chardonnay!

 

These guys are so much fun!  

 

Maybe there should a shark in the glass.  And they're terrified.

 

Or, I know.  They're in a Bruce Willis movie, suspended high in the air.  And they're hanging on for dear life.  

 

 

(One them is a Bruce, after all.)

 

Whatever they’re doing has to match their expressions.

 

But Chad, Mitch, Ryan, Brad, Cody and Josh are all wearing their poker faces.  

 

“You didn’t answer my question,” Dave said.  “Did you actually pay money for those things?

 

“Of course I did. Only $12.00,” and because I’m a Nerd I added, “That’s only $2.00 per guy.” 

 

“You paid $2.00 per guy too much.”

 

Bah.  He just doesn’t know how to fun. Thank God there's someone else in the house who values my Drinking Buddies.

 

 

Coke-Head

And I thought kicking my heroin addiction was hard. 

It was way easier than getting off Diet Coke.  

OK, so I was never a heroin addict, but I know, IF I HAD been addicted to heroin, it would have been a lot easier to kick than stinkin’ Diet Coke.

In fact, my body is in such turmoil over the missing gallons of Diet Coke, it hasn’t even noticed that I’ve had no wine since midnight on Sunday.  Or sugar.

And that I’m eating vegetables.  And fruit.  And nuts.  

It’s all part of this wack-a-doodle diet my sisters rave about.  It was Jean Anne, who weighs less than a Cocker Spaniel, who discovered the Abascal Way, which is all about reducing inflammation caused by what you eat.  Apparently, when inflammation is quieted, people begin to feel better.

I used to feel better.  Before I stopped drinking Diet Coke. 

Actually, before my trip to Hi-Wire.

In case you didn’t know, Hi-Wire is a trampoline park that has ambulances and TV lawyers parked at its front doors.  A couple weeks ago I fell off a high wire at Hi-Wire.

OK, maybe it wasn’t that high.  But it was a wire.  

OK, maybe it was more like a balance beam.  

So, I lost my balance and fell, miraculously missing the hundreds of foam bricks beneath the beam.   

Instead, I landed on the rim of the foam pond, which is protected by padding the width of 2-ply toilet paper. 

I braced myself for the fall using my hand, which caused an excruciating jolt that ran from my wrist to my shoulder.  My hip landed squarely on the edge of the pond, leaving me with a bruise the size of South America.  

The bruise faded, my wrist is fine, but my shoulder still hurts. 

It’s inflamed. Which brings me back to the Abscal Way.

I started the stupid diet on Monday morning, which was Martin Luther King Day, a holiday from work. I slept in. I hardly missed the Diet Coke.

But when the alarm went off at 6:00 the next morning my head was throbbing.  As if I’d consumed 6 glasses of wine and a 12-pack of Labatt’s the previous night.  I popped two Tylenol, some blueberries and nuts and headed into work.   

IN A FOG.

My body craving Diet Coke.

It was bad.

At 9:30 a client came in my office and began to talk to me.  I noticed that her lips were moving.  After a few minutes they stopped.  

Was it my turn to talk?  Maybe another blueberry would help.
 
I popped one into my mouth, swallowed, and said, “You were saying?”

The day got worse.  After my lunch of vegetables and an apple I began to fade again.  I seriously considered crawling under my desk for a nap.  But that would have been too tempting. 

You know what?  I'm gonna do it.  Why?  Because I am not your ordinary Diet Coke addict.   

I'm a Nerdling.  

When I set goals I achieve them, damn it!
 
And if I want to stop drinking Diet Coke I WILL SUCCEED.

But then again, I am also sensitive to my own needs.  And if I want a cold bubbly Diet Coke.

It's my own damn prerogative.

Salami in the Tin Foil Drawer

“I found the phone,” Dave announces as I enter the kitchen.

 “I didn’t know it was lost.”

“Yeah", he says.  "I’ve been looking for it for 10 minutes.”
 
“Well, where was it?”

“In the cupboard.  Next to the cereal.”  He raises one eyebrow and adds, “Why did you put it there?”

Here we go again.  He thinks it was me.  I know it was him.  

 “Not me,” I flatly deny.  “Must have been the same person who put the salami in the tin foil drawer last week.”
 
One thing’s for sure.  It couldn’t have been Linda.

She never puts anything away.

But there’s no way it was me.  I would never put the phone next to the Rice Krispees!
 
Although I did pour Diet Coke in Kevin’s water dish the other day.  

And then there was that tiny mishap with the clogs.

(I bought a new pair of brown clogs and dropped off my old pair at Good Will.  Except I gave away one shoe from each pair.)

OMG!  Maybe it was me!!  And it’s only likely to get worse.

If there was only some way to make lemonade out of this lemon.

Wait. One. Minute.

Reality TV! 

It will be a cross between Keeping Up With the Khardashians and The Real Housewives of Atlanta. 
 
I'll call it: Keeping Up With Stuff Misplaced by the Real Old People of Columbia.
 
It will be the biggest hit since Hoarders! 
 
I can just imagine the chatter in break rooms around the country.  “Did you see Keeping Up with Stuff Misplaced by the Real Old People of Columbia last night?”

And the ratings will go through the roof when I accidentally brush my teeth with Kevin’s Chicken Toothpaste.

Can you get me some Pop Tarts?

Just call me Florence!  As in Nightingale!  Flying to Buffalo in the middle of a late March blizzard to help my sweet sister-in-law in her valiant fight against lung cancer.

Better yet, call me Maria!  As in The Sound of Music!  I would sing to Evie as I helped: "Doe a deer, a female deer.."

I was full of enthusiasm and up for the task. Twenty degrees at the end of March?  Who cares?  I was like Alice in The Brady Bunch!  I could handle anything.

I awoke bright and early at 8 AM, ready, willing and able to help. I was a well oiled machine: get dressed, brush teeth, take Synthroid pill, comb hair, take dogs out.  Check! Check! Check! Check!

And Check!

The phone rang.  My brother Jim had locked himself out of his truck.  No problem!  That's what I'm here for.  Check!

It was only 8:45 and I had already saved the day!

Next on my list was to drive Evie to her 9:00 Radiation treatment.  Jim wanted to drive but I told him no.  I would drive my rental car.  It would be easier for Evie to get in and out of, compared to his truck.

I know what you're thinking.  How every thoughtful.  Thank you.

The clinic was about 10 minutes away and I have to say that Jim was a way worse back-seat driver than I remembered him to be.  

Here is a sampling of what I had to endure: "You're in the wrong lane", "Watch our for that bush!" and "You just drove over the curb."

I was beginning to feel unappreciated.

The three of us walked into the clinic, but in all honesty I don't remember much about it.

Apparently, I had begun to stagger.  Like a drunk. Jim, who up until this point had been focusing all of his attention on Evie, began to suspect something was wrong with me.

"Lou, are you okay?" he asked.

"I just need a Diet Coke," I told him.  Jim told me to "stay put" while he looked for a soda machine.

He must have been gone a long time because I had to go looking for him. I stumbled around the clinic through a maze of hundreds of hallways and secret doorways  in quest of my Diet Coke,

When Jim returned with my Diet Coke he found the waiting room empty.  "Where'd she go?" he asked the woman behind the desk.  She pointed in the direction he had come from.

So Jim went in search of me, found me wandering in confusion, and escorted me to the waiting room, where my Diet Coke was also waiting.

I took a swig and said, "Can you get me some Pop Tarts?"

Jim said, "Are you okay, Lou?"

"Or Toaster Schhhttttrudels."

At this point Jim asked a nurse to look me over.  He assured her that I was normally quite normal despite my abnormal behavior.  The nurse took my blood pressure, which was, of course, normal.

Still, Jim suspected that something was seriously wrong with me.  Possibly a stroke.

Evie returned from her treatment and Jim took us each by the hand and walked to the car.

He insisted on driving my rental car, even though he wasn't on the rental agreement.  "You better be careful," I told him as he pushed me into the passenger seat.

Jim asked Evie if he thought they should take me to the Emergency Room.

The poor guy was at a breaking point.  Not only did he have to worry about Evie, now it seemed his sister was in the midst of a stroke.

He said, "Lou, did you take any pills this morning?"

"Just my Synthroid."

"Are you sure it was your Synthroid and not something else?" he asked.

I tried to think.  Yes.  I pulled the pill from my suitcase in the dark.  But the only pills I had in my suitcase were Synthroid and...

Oh no.

My emergency Ambien.  In case I have really bad insomnia.

Florence Nightingale?

Nah.

Just call me Lindsey.

As in Lohan.

Test Driving the Wine Rack

As I prepared to take my dog Kevin for a walk this morning in the sweltering heat it occurred to me that my recent "Wine Rack" purchase might make the walk more enjoyable. For those of you not familiar with this item, the Wine Rack is a drink dispensing sports bra that is advertised to increase your bust line by 2 cup sizes. 

My Wine Rack arrived in the mail earlier this week in an innocuous brown envelope containing a sports bra and a plastic canteen with a long tube (straw) attached. At the end of the tube is a twist-top to be used to open and close the straw. It came with no directions (or warning labels).

I had been waiting for just the right time to test drive it. Since it was 10:00 in the morning, I decided to pilot my Wine Rack using Diet Coke, rather than wine. 

So, I filled the plastic boob shaped canteen with Diet Coke. "This is fabulous!", I thought. "How easy can you get?"

Next I put the sports bra on and attempted to situate the Diet Coke-filled falsies in place. 

Then came my first ah-ha. It would probably be more natural looking (and feeling), if I hadn't filled them to the tip-top.

My second ah-ha followed. Chilled beverages really cooled down my rack. 

I looked a little unnatural, but I wasn't planning to leave the house in just my Wine Rack. I pulled a t-shirt over my head and strung the drinking tube through my sleeve. I looked in the mirror and nodded my approval. I was definitely looking hot.

Then I untwisted the twist-top to take a sip of my Diet Coke. 

It was like a fire hydrant going off in my mouth. I raced to the bathroom sink as fast as I could, further shaking up the bottles, as Diet Coke squirted out of my nose, my ears and my eyeballs. It was like taking a shower in Diet Coke. 

Third ah-ha: the Wine Rack is not appropriate for drinking carbonated beverages. Especially when filled to the tip-top and shaken up. (I can only imagine what would have happened if I had been practicing my pogo-stick/jump rope trick at the time). 

In the end, I was completely covered in Diet Coke. Apparently Kevin was embarrassed by the scene I caused and refused to go on a walk with me. 

To hell with him.  I sat on the porch and finished my drink.  It was too hot to walk the dog anyhow.