Girl Talk Thursday is Mommy Melee‘s weekly event, and I really love participating, so here it comes: my thoughts on the topic of “Booze. Booze. Booze.”

BOOOOOOOZE.

Oh, booze.  You and I had a funny beginning.  And by funny, I mean terrifying.

You see, on my 17th birthday, I filled a travel coffee mug with Hot Damn! cinnamon Schnapps, which I had sampled once while working at Dunkin’ Donuts when my 19 year old manager brought in a few shots (there were a lot of reasons I loved that job…)

Filling a travel mug with alcohol is not, in and of itself, a horrible thing. However, bringing it to school is.  Drinking it during French class at 10am is.  Waving your arms in the air to answer every question in English class while your classmates hiss at you, “TATIANA, DON’T TALK, YOU’RE DRUNK” is.  Being so drunk that you go to your English teacher 20 minutes before school lets out and sobbing to him that you are so sorry that you were drunk during his class is definitely and unequivocally a horrible thing.

My poor English teacher.  He was a very straight-laced, very Christian, very cute man.  He didn’t know what to do.  He didn’t want to report me to the administration, because he liked me and I was obviously quite repentant for what I’d done, but he also  valued his job, so… to the administration it was.

The administrator in question was Mr. PolishG, a round, awesome Polish dude with glasses.  Every student loved him when he was happy, and feared him when he was angry.  He was astonished to see me enter his office for this offense.

Well, eventually my mother showed up, and she talked to Mr. PolishG in Polish since it’s her native tongue, and fortunately this bonding experience lowered my punishment to the absolute minimum: a 5 day suspension.

So Mom drives me home, and it’s my birthday, and we get to the house and people sing Happy Birthday to me, and I blow out the candles on my cake and I think I got to open my presents, and then I was sent to my room FOR THE REST OF MY NATURAL LIFE.

Not really, since obviously I’m still alive and I’m no longer in my room, but point being… it was a pretty interesting introduction to booze.

These days, my drinking is much less eventful.  I waver between vodka & cranberry juice or amaretto & cola being my favourite mixed drink.  I love mojitos when they’re properly made, even if I can’t figure out how to keep the mint from floating to the top of the glass and interfering with every sip when I mix them myselves.  I have fantasies about margaritas, but not the frozen/slushy ones, and they must have lots of salt.

I daydream about doing lemon drop shots.  I toss a tsp of sugar in with my vodka and ice in a cocktail shaker, then strain it into a shot glass.  Shoot the vodka and sugar, then bite down into a lemon wedge that has been dipped in sugar on both sides.  Delish.  I used to do these after work when I was a bartender — I had a particular customer who would buy me a whole row of shots if I let him.  Don’t worry, I took a cab home!

Honestly though, I end up drinking wine most of the time.  I’ve finally found one I quite enjoy — Vineland Estates 2007 Dry Riesling — and what makes me happiest about this is that they’re an Ontario vineyard.  I really like to eat and buy locally whenever possible.

So… how do you feel about booze?