Champagne Wishes and Caveat Dreams

Did I ever mention I love alcohol?

Seriously...I love this stuff. I'm tiny and as they would say back in Jersey "I'm a cheap date".

While this brings up connotations of things most untoward, I'm not even going there. I'm a little person and my alcohol tolerance, i.e., "buzz level", doesn't take much alcohol for it to kick in.

Let me be perfectly frank here...I'm not an alcoholic, a lush, or a drunkard. I don't need to be interventioned and I don't need the number to AA.

I am a responsible drinker.

That might sound like a lesson in contradiction, but I am.

I never drive after I drink and I've never have fallen face-down in front of my kids and I don't "worship the porcelain god".

I have what people back in the 1960s would refer to as "The Bewitched Syndrome". (Okay, maybe only I would refer to it as that as I'm the one who coined the phrase.)

Do you not have a clue?

Let me help you out.

Did you ever watch the television show, "Bewitched"?

Darrin always had a Martini waiting for him when he got home. Sure, Samantha and Endora might have been bar-hopping on Saturn (they liked to say "Saturn" a lot back then - I was too little to know if it was an in-joke...and I'm too old now to care) with Dr. Bombay, but by the time the "going home whistle" blew at the advertising firm of McMann & Tate - Samantha was back on Earth being the dutiful wife...and Darrin was on his way home to wet his own whistle.

Honestly, I don't think there was an episode which didn't extol the virtues of alcohol. It's a wonder anyone growing up the 60s didn't have a monkey of sorts on their back...and I'm not counting any shows where Endora actually put one ON Darrin's back. Oh, c'mon the plot was always the same: Darrin does something to piss off Endora - Endora, in turn, casts a spell on Darrin, Darrin learns a lesson, Larry and Louise come over and down copious amounts of alcohol...something "witchy" happens and Samantha always weaves her way out of it.

This was way before Christine O'Donnell came on the political scene. Plus Samantha always tried NOT to be a witch...which was always central to the plot line...and everyone knows when Samantha twitched her nose... there was nothing really political going on. Unless, of course, you count the warlock council and that coven of witches...who weren't so much coveting votes as they were just trying to have a little fun messing with mortals.

Enter again - alcohol.

Every single one of them drank like a fish. The only one I never saw drink was their nosy neighbour, Gladys. She was probably too busy taking psychotropic drugs I guess. She always saw things and no one ever believed her. She was the poster child for Xanax if there ever was one, poor lady. And then there was Mrs. Stephens (Darrin's mother), who always had a "sick headache" -- not to be confused with a "regular one", because long before WebMD was invented she was the most neurotic person on television until Howie Mandel came along.

But, I digress.

As W.C Fields (who drank a lot) always said, "All things being equal I'd rather be in Philadelphia."

And, as Jimmy Stewart said to Cary Grant in "The Philadelphia Story" (and did I mention I grew up in Jersey -- and Jersey was very close in proximity to Philadelphia)..."Champagne is a great leveleler... leveleler. It makes you my equal." If you've never seen the movie - do so...it's better than the sum total of Bewitched episodes...and has its share of other champagne moments that anyone inside and outside of Bryn Mawr can relate to.

And, boy oh boy, can I relate to alcohol -- and if I would have been around during Prohibition - I would have shed my inhibitions to imbibe the 'nectar of the gods'. Did I mention I was a "cheap date"?

Oh well.

God knows I need a drink just to follow what I just wrote.

So, Cheers! Which, by the way, was a much, much, much better show than anything on the air today. Plus, ironically, it centered around alcohol.

Did I happen to mention I love alcohol?

Blind Ambition

I'm in Walmart the other day and we needed to get new band-aids. We pick up this one box and it has Braille on it. Now, I realize there are blind people out there and this is probably a good thing to do - they have menus in Braille and such...but, picture this scenario if you will:

A blind person walking around in Walmart trying to find the band-aids fumbling around with 20 million other products on the shelves that don't have the Braille "band-aids" raised dots on them...knocking things over left and right.

First off, I think the blind person would probably have had someone "not blind" drive them to Walmart, right? Most likely - unless they came on a bus - but since there's no buses where I live to go to Walmart...I totally discounted that idea.

Anyway, if they had a "not blind" friend, wouldn't they just ask them for the band-aids? A "not blind" person doesn't need to have the little Braille dots on the package in order to find them. Or perhaps, in a perfect world, a Walmart worker would see the person needed aid of some sort and offer to help them out...but since this has probably never, ever happened in recorded history...it probably wouldn't then, either.

So, okay, the blind person goes to buy the band-aids and pulls a $20 bill out of his wallet. It has no little raised dots and the cashier gives him change back for a $5. Then the blind person takes the band-aids back home and puts them in the top right drawer in their bathroom.

I'm not blind - but if I put them in the top right drawer of my bathroom - they'd probably still be in it when I go to look for them later (no pun intended). And, if I closed my eyes and went into my bathroom right now, I'm sure I could deduce which box in the top right-hand drawer is band-aids - c'mon it's not shaped like a tube of toothpaste or the jar of Vaseline. Even if I had eight boxes of other stuff in there shaped just like a band-aid box, I could always open one box, stick my fingers inside and go "Nope, not band-aids...nope again...yep, band-aids".

So what is the friggen REAL reason Braille is ON the band-aid box???

I figure the band-aid people were gathered around their conference room one meeting-day thinking of new and innovative band-aid technology and couldn't really think of anything new in the adhesive, print, or bendy realm...so one guy in the back who was filling in for his boss who was enjoying his "Three Martini Lunch" piped up, "Uh...how about Braille?"

Three of the people sitting there laughed - but the guy in charge, in typical board-room executive decision-making fashion, fired them and appointed "George the accounting dweeb" head of "Box Design" and the others learned an important lesson about stifling all laughter until you get back to your cubicle.

The executive-in-charge then told some other dweeb guy to gather up demographics costing in the hundreds-of-thousands of dollars to ascertain if the mere presence of Braille made the company look more sympathetic than their competition - and, face it, who really needs to look more sympathetic than a maker of things like "ouchless" band-aids?

No one.

So, naturally, I bought the other brand of band-aids.

That'll teach them to let three people go in this economy...the unsympathetic bastards.

My Birthday

Well, my birthday has come and gone. I opted to stay home and not go out to dinner because I still was in a lot of pain from my operation. My daughter bought and wrapped me some gifts she purchased at Williams-Sonoma...pretty much anything they sell there I'd like...plus I have been known to do the "oooh I like THIS and THIS and THIS" thing a lot whenever I'm shopping with her.

She also was the one who decided getting a candle down from the cupboard, putting it on my Cheesecake Olivia from Outback Steakhouse, and lighting it would be the festive and proper thing to do. I fear no traditional "Happy Birthday" song would have been sung had she not thought of this, and I feel sad about that.

I also feel sad that my son, who is 20, didn't get me a present nor a card. He is old enough to get me something. He's claiming he didn't have enough money to get me something "really nice". I would have been happy with nearly anything.

Also, it seems the players at my interactive comedy website, don't seem to care much at all either. Must be the season to be selfish...I don't know. But free ecards ARE relatively inexpensive.

Anyway, the day is now over...I only managed to drink one Martini and it wasn't a big one at that, but I was in pain. I also do have a few gifts that will be getting here next week so that will be nice.

I also have a blog I started writing in the doctor's office the other day...so something will be posted here - probably tomorrow.

Now far be it from me to ruin a good time, so those of you who would love to send me cards, flowers, money, job offers, and incredibly gorgeous presents, please feel free to do so. There is an address you can send them to via my comedy website...and yes, it is indeed valid. I am sure it's best to err on the side of caution this time and not start holding my breath anytime soon...last year David Blaine got some wild idea in his head because of my antics. Surely no one wants to give him any more ideas. ;)