Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.
—LEONARDO DA VINCI
I couldn’t help myself.
Cocktail
Scotch.
Ingredients
* egg
Instructions
The only step is to know what a Scotch egg is so that this makes sense.
Puns are important. This is an amazing visual pun.
WHAT YOUR WINE STOPPER SAYS ABOUT YOU
• Top Hat: You’re a fun-loving kind of guy. But you know how to keep it classy.
• Lil’ Dude: You enjoy a tiny companion or two while you indulge.
• Monogram: You like to leave your mark. You also steal pills from your friends’ medicine cabinets. Probably.
And on that note we come to the end of the first part of this book. At this point you’ve learned some amazing tools to keep your kitchen cookin’! To recap, we’ve covered how to make:
• The Hartwich
(Knowledge is ingenuity! Learn from the past!)
• Can Bake
(Inventing things is hard! You don’t have to start from scratch!)
• Latke Shotkes
(Plan ahead to avoid a night of dread!)
• Layzagna
(Take time to attend to your personal needs . . . like occasional lethargy!)
• Compound Butters
(But seriously, Orange is one of the best shows on Netflix.)
• Fruit Cocktail
(NO.)
• PB&J&PC
(Simple additions can bear great results!)
• Things in a Blanket
(You may know what you’re doing, but try to think outside the blanket!)
• Scotch Egg
(PUNZ4LYFE)
And that’s great! But this is also a book about drinking, so I would like to take a moment to explain to you some warnings—a small caveat or two—before we continue. As I said earlier, knowledge is power, so before you go to a party and play power hour (that game where you take shots of beer every minute? yikes), here are some things that you should know about that good ol’ firewater that we call “DRANK.”
10 Things Alchohol Alcohol Does to Your Body
(After all this time, I still spell “alcohol” wrong on the first try.)
Drinking too much can damage the heart.
OR
Drinking for a broken heart won’t help it mend any faster.
* * *
Drinking to forget your problems won’t actually make them disappear. In fact, it might actually make some of your problems worse. Particularly if you have a drinking problem. Then you should drink less.
OR
Sometimes I have a drink to help myself be a little less doubtful. See, I’ve got this nasty habit of trying to anticipate the future, as I’m sure many of you do as well. But the future is an expansive place . . . wait, actually scratch that. The future doesn’t really exist at all. And neither does our past, only our experiences in the past, which form our bodies in the same way that wind forms the beach trees.
But this is about doubt. And I doubt myself a lot. I think of something, and then I use my mind to foresee its future and determine that either (A) it’s not worth the time I’ll spend trying to get there, or (B) the outcome is poor. So when I say that sometimes I have a drink to eliminate doubt, I don’t mean that some times the synapses in my mind are so dismantled that I can no longer foresee cause and effect. THIS IS BAD. You can burn your face off this way. But maybe sometimes it’s late at night and I want to relax with a glass of wine and maybe start that historical novel I’ve been meaning to read . . . well, in that case a little liquor goes a long way. This works! But then if I have too many (and for my tiny body, too many usually literally means two many) I will more than likely dissolve into a 1990s pop ballad slow dance party of one. Which is, frankly, bizarre to watch and doesn’t really help you finish your taxes.
* * *
Drinking too much will damage your liver.
OR
Keeps your liver on its toes? Seriously. Your liver will begin to grow toes if you drink too much. It’s not cute. Some say that there are foods that are good for your liver, like raw onions, so eat some of those. Though that may not be good for your kisser. Or kissee . . . as in person you kiss.
* * *
Drinking too much can really damage this relationship. Like forgetting to pick them up from school, spilling hooch all over their homework, hitting on their teacher during Parents’ Day, collapsing into a fit of body-racking sobs so that they can no longer hate you but are trapped by the terrible burden of their own pity and who just asked if it was possible to buy more Cap’n Crunch because there was none left.
OR
Drinking too much can cause hepatorenal failure, which leads to, well . . . let’s say making sure there is cereal in the house is an easier problem to remedy than that.
Too much of anything will affect your body weight. This in turn may affect your image of yourself. For me, drinking leads almost immediately to eating, but I’ve seen some people drink through dinner and forget to eat entirely. That’s not good either. It’s best to balance out the occasional excess by being aware and responsible. It’s hip and nouveau. Putting the MOD in moderation.
Oops. I mean . . . Jokes, jokes, jokes.
* * *
This one is easy. Alcohol is a diuretic and will dehydrate you. Proper hydration is the key to healthy skin. Therefore, if you’ve got preexisting skin baggage (like issues, not, like, under the eye baggage . . . though I think that drinking water helps with that too), make sure to pound a ton of water to compensate for your night on the town.
**** THING I LEARNED WHILE
RESEARCHING THIS BOOK ****
Alcohol causes facial blood vessels to dilate (think of that jolly, sweaty, tomato look on everyone’s face when they close the bar and turn the lights on) and repeated bingeing can lead to the vessels remaining overworked. Thus leaving your face with a permanent ruddy complexion.
Most extreme scenarios look like this:
* * *
It’s easy to think that drinks with your beloved will lead to a night of raucous, kinked-out sex—and I find this to be true for the most part—but I’m still in my twenties and only now having the amount of sex I’ve always wanted. However, I’ve heard these recurring descriptions of drunken sex from some of my older friends:
“Sloppy.”/“Gross.”/“Bizarre.”/“My back hurts, and it’s not even from the sex itself but the fact that I slept on the couch.”/“We were going for floor sex but then we spilled wine on the carpet and had to clean it up because we have in-laws staying this weekend. By the time we had gotten most of it out, we moved things into the bedroom . . . but The Voice was on . . . so we ended up falling asleep on top of the covers.”
And while I might choose to believe that my sexual prowess remains masterful despite any form of impairment or inebriation . . . I may or may not have heard the following comments directed my way:
“Ha.”/“I’m not sleeping in the bathtub.”/“No. We are not having a threesome. You are just seeing double.”
* * *
Turns out the smell of second-day tequila oozing out your pores does not make the best impression. Same with second-day eyeliner. Sure, it’s always good to be grateful that you made it into bed in a safe place, but not super fun to have your eyelashes caked together. In terms of clothing, my rule remains: “If I can take them off and they stand on their own, that wins them a round-trip ticket to Laundry Town, USA.”
FUN FACT: I love a good drunk shower. Don’t know why, but I really do. Be careful though! Only do this if you can stay upright. No sitting. That leads you to a one-way ticket to Sleep Town, USA. Stopping off at Pneumonia Town, USA, with a possible destination of Deadsville.
* * *
Do not use Q-tips when drinking!
* * *
Do not use Q-tips in your nose ever!
* * *
I have a terrible habit of losing my voice in the morning. Be it from shouting over the din at the bar, spontaneous outbursts of karaoke, or laughing myself into a stupor in the corner, I feel that one of the most affected parts of my body (post-insobriety) is often my throat. Also, given that I love the sound of my own voice, the hoarseness and discomfort severely limit my ability to speak, which in turn suffocates my soul, since I have so much I want to say constantly.
Here’s a tip: If you feel yourself starting to clear your throat before every sentence . . . that’s a pretty good indicator that it’s time to practice your listening skills. Or switch to water. Quitter.
* * *
While some people will argue that this (A) may not exist or (B) is certainly not part of our physical forms, I’m going to go ahead and boldly state that consciousness (at the very least) is an irrefutable part of the human experience. So what effect does alcohol have on this portion of being? Well, that’s for you to decide. Like any healthy relationship, this will involve lots of patience and understanding. Not to mention motivation for change.
For instance, if you feel a deep well of sadness after a night of heavy drinking (a chemical occurrence, since alcohol is a natural depressant), it may be best to lay off for a little while and give yourself some time to recalibrate. Pick up a different hobby for a bit. Maybe writing a book? I hear that’s a big thing these days.
