Thursday, October 11, 2007

x365: 13 of 365: a pint of Canadian Club whiskey

Hey there, pint of Canadian Club. Do you remember me? I remember you. Sort of.

New Year's Eve, 1986. I was fifteen and sporting my first mohawk at Jason Buxton's party. I bought you for five bucks from Brian G. (yes, that one) and decided, after a couple of drinks, that you and me were were good friends. I took you outside in the cold to share a smoke, where I downed most of the rest of you. Then I went back in and sat down, glad to have met you.

I have no idea why, but suddenly I was lying in the back of a pickup truck, vomiting a lot. I didn't like you so much anymore. When the countdown to the new year started, I was hunched over a laundry sink in the basement, dry heaving my way into the latter half of the eighties. Why'd you leave me that way, pint of Canadian Club whiskey?

8 comments:

Indigo Bunting said...

Their type is soooo love-him-and-leave-him.

Anonymous said...

I had a similar experience with the inappropriately named Southern Comfort brand of liquor-based drinking products. In between mighty bouts of hurling, I'd yell things like,

"COMFORT, MY ASS!"

and

"YOU LIED TO ME!"

Anonymous said...

CC also did me wrong (more like I did it wrong) and coincidentally at the age of 15. My friend's mom poured us a glass, because she was cool like that, and it tasted like turpentine. I was into California Coolers back then so I decided I'd just shoot it all at once and get it over with. Unfortunately, the glass was shaped kinda like a bubble and all of the cc went right up my nose and in my eyes(ouch!) I was uncool like that.

dk said...

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA! so maybe that is the origin of the hunchiness problemo. bouncing around in pickups on Saskatchewan pothole collections and enforced extended interludes with liquid receptacles.

I only drank CC when I drank rye. I don't anymore - it makes me violent.

fatboyfat said...

Everyone has their One Drink, the one with which they had a formative experience as a teenager, and which does nothing but provoke a gag reflex for years, decades afterwards.

With me it's Malibu. Aged 14, (in 1984, no less) and trying desparately to impress Tiffany Cleeve. The foul coconut-based liqueur was the only drink left in Chris Silk's parents cocktail cabinet.

On a quiet night, I reckon you can still hear the echoes of the heaving that ensued.

Theresa said...

Ah yes, Southern Comfort did me wrong. We mixed it with 7-Up and called it a Snake Bite. There wasn't anyplace that snake didn't bite.

palinode said...

Indigo - It seems like sweet-talking and smooth-tasting alcohol made us all its bitches.

'sir' - That was funny.

Shawnty - I remember California Coolers. I once had eight of them all to myself. Me and my friends ended up on the top of some building in downtown Halifax, and some punk girl decided that my generosity with the coolers made me one awesome dude. She puked copiously in gratitude.

Wench - You could be right about the relationship between my current back problems and my time in the back of a pickup. But those were Nova Scotia roads, not Saskatchewan, and therefore even worse - lots of hills, rock, ruts and bumps.

Fat - Malibu? Sweet coconut Jesus, man. That stuff is nasty.

Theresa - We have Snake Bites here as well. I live in a land of media scrums and snake bites.

savia said...

Oh, God, Captain Morgan's dark rum. I was so drunk, I kept calling it Fisherman's Friend.

It was no longer my friend later that night.

And I certainly wasn't going to be sailing on any ship where he was the captain.