I like to pretend that it's a superpower, but it's not.

So, for those over 21, you know what it's like to go out to cheap beer night. And here in Nevada, there's never ever a shortage of beer.

Now, I've been living in the desert in some form or another for nearly 14 years. This fact that does not factor into my feeble brain when I'm drinking cheap beer. If I'm having cocktails, desert survival brain kicks in and tells me to have as glass of water for every, or every other, cocktail.

But, if we're drinking unlimited Bud, Coors, Busch... etc? There is no survival brain. There's just beer brain. This is because I'm highly unlikely to actually get drunk from these beers unless I'm shotgunning them at a rate that with my bladder, means I should just take my pitcher of beer and sit on the toilet until I'm done peeing... forever.

I get so busy keeping my buzz on, making sure my beer is always full, and not drinking so much that I have to urinate every 3 seconds, that I forget to drink water. And even when I get home after a night of drinking beer, I seriously just stare at the bottle of water next to my bed like I am the far superior being. I don't need that water. Until about 2 hours later, and I have to give the water bottle credit for not judging me when I wake up feverish and moaning in the early stages of dehydration.

And I keep doing this... I mean, even rats learn that the cheese is electrified and stop doing it. My superpower makes me dumber than a rat. Go team me, go.

I have this thing about directions

Whenever I go to visit my parents, I end up being the one to drive everywhere during my visit despite the fact that they live in a completely different city than the one I grew up in and therefore have no idea where I'm going.

This would be fine if my parents had maps.  Or senses of direction.  Or sanity.

Take something simple, like going out to eat.  Despite all my begging, my parents will never tell me the name of the restaurant we're going to and seem baffled when I tell them I want the name so that I can Google Map it.

"But sweetheart," says my mother, "it's just up the street and we'll tell you how to get there."

Even when I ask nicely, they don't seem to understand the question, "What's the name of the restaurant?"

"What does it matter?" my father asks.  "It's just down the road."

When I say, "Pretty, pretty please, I am begging you in the name of all that is holy to tell me the name and/or street address of the restaurant to which we are going," they look at me with bemused expressions and I can see that they're becoming concerned for my sanity.  For good reason.  Here's how a typical trip with my parents goes.

Me: Left, right, or straight here?
Mom: We're going left.
Me: [gets into the left lane, waits for the light, turns left]
Mom: You should have gone straight ahead, we're going to to have to turn around.
Me: You said left!
Mom: Well, I didn't mean right away.

and then, later

Dad: Hey, can you turn left here?
Me: No.
Dad: Why not?
Me: I'm in the far right lane.
Dad: Oh.
Me: [after a few minutes of silence] Was that a rhetorical question about turning left or did we actually
need to go left back there?
Mom: We needed to go left.
Me: Okay. Next time, I'm getting a map.
Mom: Why would you need a map? Your dad and I know exactly where we're going.
Me: [muttering] Not that you bother to tell me...
Mom: What?
Me: Nothing. Okay, after I turn around, where do I go?
Mom: To the restaurant.
Me: Which restaurant?
Mom: The one we're going to.
Me: ARE YOU FREAKING KIDDING ME?
[silence, then] Mom: I don't know why you have to get so angry all the time.
Me: What. Is the name. Of the restaurant.
Mom: It's just up here a ways on the left.
Dad: The right.
Mom: The right.
Me: THE NAME! TELL ME THE GOD DAMN NAME OF THE RESTAURANT!
Dad: The Stadium.
Me: Thank you.
Mom: You just passed it. It was on the left.

This is inevitably the time during the drive when I threaten to crash the car and kill all three of us for the good of the world.

My family has always been like this with directions, which might be the reason I'm obsessed with maps and detailed directions to wherever I'm going.  This might also be the reason that Hattie and I should not take road trips together, because when I'm driving and ask Hattie if we need to take I-5 North or I-5 South and she shrugs and replies, "Whatever, we'll get there no matter which way we go," I fly into a rage blackout.

I'm pretty sure I once threatened to rip out her pancreas and make her eat it while on a road trip in Los Angeles.  In my defense, Hattie's theory that if you just keep driving eventually you'll find what you're looking for doesn't apply when you're driving in a city with an area of roughly 20,000 square miles.  Also in my defense, she had shared her "we'll get there eventually" theory with me just moments before we saw signs welcoming us to Compton.

I realize that I am insane when it comes to directions, and I realize that I become verbally abusive if my navigator lets me down.  However, when people do things my way, we arrive where we need to be safely, efficiently, and on time.  If you ever find yourself in a car with me and have somehow become my navigator, avoiding my rage is simple; keep your eye on exit and road signs and read the directions that I have written out in my very neatest handwriting complete with mileage estimates, exit numbers, and alternate routes that may become necessary in case of construction, traffic, or nuclear war.  That's it.  Do these simple things and your pancreas will remain in your body where it belongs.

So Bored

So, it's day three of my four days off and I've officially gone insane. Instead of cleaning my apartment (which really looks like I'm squatting in even though I've lived here for almost a year... literally, my bed is on my floor), I've spent my morning mainlining Futurama and reading gossip blogs that make magazines like OK! and The Examiner look classy. Also, I've been reading them aloud. To myself.

I've decided too that I'm going to buy a bar of soap for my birthday next week. Not because I'm dirty... which I am, but because I figure it's been at least 5 years since I last bought a bar of soap. I use body wash, not nothing, if that's what you're thinking.

I am torn on what to buy. I can't have Dove, because even though that's supposed to be all dye-free super sensitive and whatever, it makes me break out like I have herpes. Of my whole body. Not just my hands. Which, after many years of trying to figure out, I still don't know why I have herpes hands. It's not actually herpes, it's just this weird rash that I think might be related to stress that I have on my hands.

Apparently, Palmolive now makes a bar soap... I can't use that. Because it makes me think of greasy dishes, and I am not a greasy dish. I'm googling bar soap right now. And I feel like last time I bought bar soap all you could get was Dove, Irish Spring, Lever 2000, and Dial. Now, there are way too many choices. I'm tempted to go to Von's and look at choices, but I'd really have to shower, because if I don't, they'd probably kick me out for being a hobo. But hobos need soap too. They probably need soap most of all. Maybe I'll buy a pack of soap for my birthday and give it to some hobos. They can wash up in the sprinklers.

Banana Shame Spiral

So, today I went to the grocery store to buy bananas, because my favorite breakfast it a frozen banana, vanilla soy milk, and oatmeal, blended up and then drank from a cup with a straw. This does not work without a straw.

But that is not the point. The point was, because the bananas are frozen before I use them and are cheap as all get out, I was thinking I would buy a whole bunch. And this is what I learned. One bunch in your cart makes you look all healthy. Two looks like maybe you want to share your healthy treat with your family or perhaps coworkers. Once you put three bunches in there, you look like a psychopath.

I'm not sure if you really look like a psychopath, or if it's actually kind of related to my phobia of lemons... by the way, I have a pretty intense fear of lemons in groupings greater than three, because I really don't want to be crushed to death by a pile of lemons. That's a worse way to go out then in that Dane Cook skit where Mary took a tire to the face. Could you imagine the police calling your parents and being like "We're really sorry to tell you, but your daughter was killed today at the local Von's... Yes sir, the fruit cart tipped over and the lemons got her. Sorry for your loss."

That would suck so much.

So, anyway, I had to remove one of the bunches of bananas from my cart, so that I only had two bunches, because I didn't want to be judged by my fellow patrons. Granted, I do shop at a grocery store were 99 times out of 100 I'm behind a person that's got to make their food stamp purchase first and then they got a separate transaction for their Schnapps and/or Budweiser Chelada. (For those of you that aren't familiar with Chelada, that's Budweiser mixed with Clamato. Yeah, it's real.)

Laphroig Quarter Cask and Macallan 12 Year

My friend Roy showed up at work the other day with two test tubes of Scotch for me to try. This sounds weird, but he's a microbiologist, so that makes it less weird. And the test tubes were sterile. And he knows I love Scotch.

He gave me Laphroaig Quarter Cask and Macallan 12 Year.

I uncapped the test tubes to sniff at work, I won't lie. I didn't taste them, though. I thought that probably deserved my complete attention.

The Laphroaig is pale golden compared to the richer amber of the sherry-casked Macallan. The first whiff of Laphroaig is pure smoke, but a soft smoke with hints of vanilla and Band-Aid. It's not at all unpleasant, though it sounds like it might be. On the palate, it's a mix of smoke, moss, salt, and seaweed, with an iodine sting that lingers through the tight finish.

The Macallan has a rich, fruity nose, like dried apricots and that distinctive sherry smell that makes me think of rehydrated raisins. I expected it to taste as light and fruity as it smelled, but it took me by surprise, less full-bodied and more just big-bodied. The taste is fruity, and also somewhat floral. It doesn't taste like marmalade, but it reminds me of it in it's slightly-overwhelming yet enjoyable sweetness.

With only a few milliliters of each left, I committed sacrilege and added a splash of filtered water to each one. It improved the Macallan, removing the hint of cloying sweetness and making me think of orange blossoms. The Laphroaig does not pair well with water, losing it's smoky smoothness and emphasizing the Band-Aid.