Day 44: In the Drink

One drink ain't enough, Jack, you better make it three.
I wanna get drunk I'm gonna make it real clear,
I want one bourbon, one scotch and one beer
One bourbon, one scotch, one beer
George Thorogood


This morning Walt said that it was a good thing we didn't want to move in with them because it would destroy his liver.

We have heard similar comments quite often on our journey across the States. I am not altogether sure what it is about LK and me lobbing into someone's territory, but almost everyone seems to think that it's the adult equivalent of Spring Break in Florida (about like Schoolies' Week in Queensland, for my Aussie friends). No matter the reason, we have heard at least four different people say to us as we leave, "We don't usually drink this much."

Our stock standard reply is that we don't, either. But you can tell by the look on their faces that no one believes us. And now our reputation has started to precede us.

When we landed in Rutland my mother had gone out and bought Johnny Walker black and Ketel vodka for us. She even used the phrase "amber alert" when explaining why. David, whom we're seeing in Boston in a few days, has already sent a note expressing concern that his "sober" reputation may be sullied if I report a big drinking night with him in my blog.

I suppose I've brought this on myself by writing too much about it. But it does seem as if our friends are treating us as the equivalent of a road tour exhibition.

"Learn the A to Z of Binge Drinking at the exclusive US tour of the famous D&L Exhibition from Australia. Experience it firsthand yourself by joining in. Listen to voices get louder as words get harder to understand. See for yourself how heavy someone can be who drinks too much. Learn to tell stories you've told four times already this week. Laugh before the joke gets to the punch line and then try to remember why you're laughing. The exhibition opens every evening promptly at 5 and closes when the last person falls asleep."

This may make it all sound as if we're proud of our reputation, but the fact is even I have limits. When we were at the Speckled Hen B&B in Madison for two nights, we had one of those times when the scotch bottle and the vodka bottle both were finally emptied on the same night, as was a bottle of wine. Now, it had taken us quite a few days and three or four states to finish off the booze, but there we were in a lovely room with very nice hosts, and I didn't want them thinking we had killed a couple of quarts of spirits in our 48 hours with them.

So I put the empties in a plastic bag and packed them in the car with our luggage. In fact, I carried them across a couple of states and didn't throw them out until we got to Indiana later that day. That's when I threw them in a waste can. The waste can, of course, was outside a liquor store where we were buying more booze.