Alcohol the price we pay!

Alcohol and the price we pay!

I am not talking about the actual money value; I am talking about the emotional price we pay and the embarrassment price.

Bern had a friend who was a little risque' to say the least. Well she called her out at 2.00am one morning for assistance. This is how the phone call went.

“Bern a truck called Casper took my Car! And I need you to come and fetch me!”

Bern could hear she was totally inebriated and asked for an address or directions. She explained she was in Alberton on some road on an island. Now you try and work this out, Alberton is a suburb of Johannesburg and there is no islands in the stream or otherwise. So she asked this inebriated friend to find a street name and a land mark and she could come through to help her.

Well it took some explaining and some coaching from Bern to get the directions but eventually she worked out where Janet was. So off she and her friend went to rescue the damsel in distress. They arrived in Alberton and found Janet on an Island indeed. One of those islands in the street which are used to separate the roads and to slow the traffic down. It turns out that the Casper truck was a Tow truck called Casper the towing company. Janet had decided to ramp the island on her way home from a party and she was in no state to even be driving and she was clueless to how she got there. Now I do not find this at all amusing. In fact I think many of us believe the death penalty should be instilled for this type of reckless behaviour. She was just very lucky that the police were not called and she was not asked to breathe into the little machine, she would have had more serious problems than Casper the friendly Tow Truck.

Well Bern gave the tow truck instructions, found out where he was taking the now totally destroyed vehicle as she had done serious damage to the under carriage and it was not drivable. Bern dragged the drunk Janet into the vehicle, putting her in the front of the vehicle so she could strap her in and off they went to her home.

They arrived at the gate and Bern asked Janet for her keys to open the electric gates. Janet turned to her; lips puckered and leaned into Bern. Bern looked at this picture of horror. Facial muscles gone, those lips puckered – looking like a duck’s ass and she looked at Janet and said “Keys!” To which Janet puckered her lips even harder and lent into to Bern. That is when it dawned on Bern; Janet had thought she had said KISS! As if, I have yet to find anyone one who is in the slightest bit attractive when they are so drunk they cannot even stand up. “Keys- Keys- Keys, Janet for f sakes, your damn house she shouted at her. Janet could not comprehend and after searching her hand bag, they found the keys and opened the gate. Bern banged on the front door, woke the family up and poured Janet into her mother’s arms and bade them goodbye.

The sad thing is she claims ...of course that she remembers nothing of this event. But she was in for serious bills from the panel beaters and good, she is lucky it was not jail for killing someone. So now when Bern asks for the house keys or the car keys…… well I pucker up my lips and pull a face and she knows exactly what I am reminding her of.!

Now alcohol can also make us laugh when we partake of it and monitor the intake. We were at the Boma restaurant a few years back. This is one of those eat as much as you want type deals. Now Mathew can make a meal of this and he and Cait decided to see how much they could actually consume that night. Matt managed 11 plates; okay they weren’t big plates, a little bigger than a side plate, but still 11 plates. He decided he was going to try every delicacy which was available, from the sea food, the sweet and sour ribs etc and then desert. Cait gave up after 4 or 5.

Well we all love Chocolate mousse and after a, lovely meal with so many different flavours and textures we settled on Good Old chocolate mousse as our choice of desert. We sat there for hours and during dinner we were enjoying the most exquisite bottle of red wine, sipping it slowly and savoring the smooth taste and soft velvety texture of this incredible red wine. As one does, when one is in a conversation, one takes a bite of one’s food and follows up with a sip of one’s drink.

Well Bern did exactly that and the next minute she was this drooling; salivating; red wine spilling out of her mouth, followed by dark chocolate mousse. She had not even given it a thought when she had taken a sip of the red wine, and no matter how hard she tried she just could not close her mouth and swallow the disgusting tasting concoction. She sat there as it dribbled out her mouth down the sides of her mouth onto the table. I looked at her in sheer horror and my kids collapsed. I mean literally collapsed with the site of this person who insists on good manners no matter what. Sarah grabbed a serviette and held it under her mouth and I just looked on in horror as Bern's face changed into many expressions, but it was too late. The deed was done and if only I had had a camera. So the moral of the story is…do not drink red wine with chocolate mousse. These two are just not compatible. Caitlin still teases Bern about this when we have red wine and its desert time. “Would you like some mousse to go with your red wine Bern?” and then she burst out laughing and tells the story over and over again.

Now I have mentioned my lack of a singing voice, in fact Cats join in and wail in pain with me when I sing dogs howl and I am sure the earth gravitational pull is altered. However this does not stop me from jamming along with the best of them and many years ago, the song Red Red Wine was very popular. I was singing it and thought I was doing a great job, when my brother Dene who was two at the time, put his hand on my mouth and told me I was hurting his ears. Nice one! I felt so shattered and to this day will not sing in his company, a two year old could already tell the difference between a nice singing voice and one that sounded like an animal in pain.

Which brings me to Karaoke, this is torture for me, at a conference years back, one the things they provided for their staff in the evening was Bloody Karaoke, and the rule was everyone had to participate. Now I am not a person who likes the lime light, I most definitely never auditioned for a place in a concert or a choir and most definitely would never ever agree to sing in front of my directors and work colleagues not matter what was threatened. So I stood on the stupid stage with my fellow colleagues and did the backup movements and “shoop; shoop” and wanted to die a 100 deaths. Never never again. But there are people who truly believe they can sing, and after a few too many drinks they get up on the stage and they open their mouths and sing their rendition of “Man I feel like a woman” or “Lay me down on a Bed of Roses” or their favourite “New York New York” a song that only the Great Frank Sinatra should ever be allowed to sing!

They stand up there and sing their hearts out belting out the words and I sit in the background cringing at the sight of them and watching the crowds who are jeering and cheering them on and I feel this heat rush over me as I on the one hand feel huge embarrassment for them and on the other hand admire their courage to stand up there and sing to the crowd and not give a damn. They receive amazing applause when they finish their song and I think this is because the crowds are only too happy that the song is in fact finished and the performer mistake this for an encore? Oh well we then sit through another song and another song, when eventually the crowd just join into drown out the cat screaming noises coming out of the singer’s mouth.

However there is always one person who believes they are the undiscovered New Idol and they want to sing all the time. They believe their rendition of “Midnight!” makes Juice Newton pale in comparison. Note to this singer, Get a life, girl and don’t give up your day job! My “friend” (not so much anymore) received this sms after one of this girls many attempts to sing this song. “I sang your song tonight “Midnight” and the crowd went wild!” Well we laughed until it hurt, because we knew the crowd went wild in excruciating pain running for the doors. Some people just don’t get it. !” Unlike me, I get it and I only sing if the music is loud enough to drown out my screeching attempts to sing along. A few weeks back we bumped into her when we went to Bingo (Yes people it’s not just for the aged, Caitlin enjoys it too!) and she walked over to Bern who has a very well tuned ear for music and invited her to delay our return to Durban to come and watch her sing in a Karaoke competition. Bern gave her the “Get away from me Freak Look” and was not very polite when she said, “Ummmm NO, hell NO!” Bern the poster girl for tact!

Then you have the talented people like Bern who have to be persuaded and begged to sing at these events and when she has finally had enough encouragement and one or two drinks for Dutch courage, she may be persuaded to sing the Rose. I can assure you there were more goose bumps in the audience when she sings than if they were in a blizzard on the Antarctica. She truly has the voice of an Angel, and she should give up her day job and pursue this further.

Some of us however do not need the fruit of the gods to behave like idiots and I am sure you agree after reading my blog, I fit into that category with flying colours. Last night, while enjoying a cigarette (no comments from the peanut gallery!) I dropped the smoke and in my haste not to burn a hole in the couch, I lifted my butt to try and find it and proceed to burn a blister on my derriere. So I am sitting here very gingerly on my seat, but I did rescue the couch. I was jumping around like a jitter bug and Jinx thought I was playing so it was not easy to rescue the cigarette while fending off Jinx’s attempts to get in on the game. And to put everyone mind at ease, Jinx survived the ordeal but my sweet rounded butt is now sporting a mark that can only be described as a real Cherry! Jinx my angel dog who really has enhanced my life is now teaching her sweet well mannered son, that butts are a toy to be bitten at every opportunity. Bern says she has good taste!! Oh dear Bern, there is medication for your condition I am sure. I on the other hand have no cure of this I am sure. Like a joke I heard, “Extreme make over’s and plastic surgery is one thing – but you can’t do nothing for Stupid!”

The other day I phoned Bern when she was at the office to ask her a question about the Mazoe orange juice we had bought. “Bern tell me the Mazoe Orange ? -juice where is the diluted stuff? “
She explained that it was in the lounge and my response was “So it’s not the one on top of the fridge?” Her response was – giggle, then raucous laughter while she asked me why I was asking. But she knew damn well why I was asking. I had just downed out of the bottle I might add – (not very lady like I know and something I shout at my kids for…) downed a few gulps of this Mazoe orange and it took me a few seconds to register that this was extremely sweet and I was gagging on the sweetness. Hence my comment about “You can’t do anything for stupid…. I think that the fact that the orange was still in the original Mazoe bottle should have been a dead giveaway – but hey I have an excuse…… Blame it on my Mother.

This reminds me of a time my mom and I were sitting in the lounge in Bulawayo and she asked me to go and get her panados, so I dutifully went off to get her the Panados and was talking the hind end off a donkey as I walked to the kitchen to get her some water to take the head ache pills with and when I returned I gave her the glass of water. She looked up at me confused and asked why on earth I was giving her water. I looked down at her and asked her if she was senile as she had just asked for headache tables and the water was for the headache tables. To which she promptly stuck out her tongue and gagged and choked and went ahgggggg, and grabbed the water and gulped it down in haste.

She had asked for Rennies for heart burn(she was insistent on this point just as much as I was insistent she had asked for Panados) as she was pregnant with Dene at the time and I had heard Panados and without thinking, as were we in a deep conversation, my sweet mom popped one in her mouth and was sucking it like you are meant to with Rennies. She was totally oblivious to the bitter taste in her mouth until I brought it to her attention that she had Panado in her mouth. This of course was extremely funny to me and I teased her about it for ages to come. But the one thing that makes me realize that I could only have gotten my silliness’ from my mother was the time she ran out of the bathroom shrieking with laughter and making the strangest noises as she rushed to her bedroom looking for baby powder.

She had just finished bathing and reached for her deodorant and spayed it under her arms, the next minute she felt this stinging then the smell hit her nose and she realized she had grabbed the can of Doom insect repellent instead of her deodorant and she screamed, jumped back into the bath and washed off the offending insect repellent. DID SHE KEEP THIS TO HER SELF, DID SHE DECIDE SHE NEEDS TO KEEP HER HUMILIATION PRIVATE. No my mom does exactly what I do; she rushed out to tell me. And I of course told the whole world. My mom the joker and clown and absent minded Gran. She really knew what life was about and enjoyed every minute of it. I used to ask her if she managed to get rid of the cob webs when she did the body spray with the “Doom” to which she responded, no Shell that needs a feather duster!

My Sarah and Cait are also more inclined to make a fool of themselves without the help of alcohol, and they do this with such magnificent magnitude and I adore them for it. When the five of us get together a person would swear we are totally inebriated if they were to be a fly on the wall. I was working in Lotus Park and Cait was my assistant and the girls who shared the office space with us had just bought Marie biscuits for us. Cait had her back turned to me for a few seconds and the next thing she looked at us with 8 Marie biscuits in her mouth. I see she had also got the Touch of my mom in her blood! Then she insisted I take a photo! Go figure – which I of course did. I must say I am not much better remember the story of the lost Easter eggs that I stuffed into my mouth years ago.

One time, Cait had a mouth full of cool drink and I have no idea what possessed me, but her cheeks were bulging and I could not help myself. I poked her cheek and she spat it all out into Sarah and all over Bern’s shoe.. Really I have no idea what go into me but it was funny as hell. Bern was surprised at my behaviour and she could not get overt the fact that Cait had spat at her. But she is no better, while we were still living in the house in Waterfall, Cait was giving Bern “Lip” and Bern took a sip of her water and had every intention of squirting the water at Cait through her teeth (a party trick of Hers) when her lips seemed to collapse and she squirted the water up her nose and all over her face. Poetic justice!

And we of course found this very amusing and said “Do it again; Do it again” Bern was spluttering as the water had shot right up her nose and her eyes were watering and she was laughing along with us, then she turned with her baby like expression and said “NO – stop laughing at me!” Oh please how were we supposed to do that with the water still dripped down her face and her nose was running and the tears were streaming down her face with laughter. Be real, how can we not laugh at the spectacle.

Sarah is not much better, when we were living in Johannesburg I told her she was Precocious, she was highly offended, stormed up to me and with her hands on her hips she announced with extreme feeling “MOM I am not a slut!” Well I tried to get the words out of my mouth in some sort of semblance of the English language, but the intermittent spurts of laughter like a babbling brook made me almost incoherent. I managed to stutter out “I said Precocious not promiscuous! She walked off all in a huff, only to return and say “Well what does that mean?

I said “look up Sarah-Jane in the dictionary and it will say Precocious.” And refused to say any more, well in truth I could not say anymore as I was still in the throes of a giggle. I told her to look it up in the dictionary as I was in no condition to try and explain precocious as I would never ever and I mean ever call my daughter a slut!
Dene explained, well basically it means you are a Brat who wants her own way all the time and is a hand full but is delightful and playful.

It is really good to know that the Gene my mom passed down to me has been passed down to my girls and my wish is that this continues for generations to come, because make people smile and we have the ability to laugh at ourselves too. Not everyone needs alcohol to relax and enjoy life, and I must say I enjoy the fact that I am fully aware of my surroundings and yes I take full responsibility for my actions and do not have the privilege of using alcohol as an excuse.

“How many times have you heard “I cannot remember, I was too drunk so I cannot be held responsible for my actions? “What a load of cods-wallop” of course they remember, they just want an excuse. My father used to say (and he should know) alcohol only enhances the personality so if you are an ass while sober, you are a bigger ass drunk!” Too true, see I am intelligent when sober, but I am a genius when I drink! I am a genius with the help of the fruit of the Gods and Einstein couldn’t hold a candle to me. LOL.