Cocktail Hour

I want you to accept me or reject me. I don’t like being stared at. I don’t like being the thing you will stoop to if it’s last call and you’re feeling drunk and needy.

I sit with a six-o’clock whiskey. Irish. It’s too hot for the Scotch. Or, rather, I don’t drink scotch on rocks, so the hot is not for Scotch.

Gin was once believed to cure gout. I sometimes believe it cures the insufferability of being trapped inside one’s own body forever. A good friend once stuck that bit of silliness into gin’s Wikipedia page. It lasted a week before someone erased it. I think the erasure was terribly shortsighted.

Hemmingway said he could tell the exact point on the page where Faulkner took his first drink of the day. I paraphrase. But I wonder if Faulkner wrote drunk. That seems preferable to revising drunk.

Jameson, Hendrick’s, Tito’s, Tanqueray, Caol Ila, Bacardi, Milagro, Jack Daniels. Crown Royal. That’s one each of the four whiskey groups, two gins, a vodka, a tequila and a rum. For those keeping score at home. Or considering your cocktail options should you decide to visit.

Accept me and I’ll buy you a drink. Reject me and I’ll pour myself one.