My Apologies to the Swiss: You're Just So...Evil

My world is shattered. Or was, rather, last night, just before midnight, when I was offered an alcoholic drink, took a sip of someone else's, and then...refused. Politely of course, (I'm Canadian for crying out loud,) but the fact remains that I refused liquor. On what basis, you might ask? The fact that I will not be legally allowed to consume alcohol for just over a year? (A couple of months in Alberta.) No. I have no qualms about social drinking so long as I don't over do it. Perhaps I'd already drunk so much that my eyeballs were floating? No. The reason, dear people, is that I've decided, much against my better judgement, that I dislike the taste of alcohol. Yeah I screamed in horror too as I came the that realization. I have no idea what's wrong with me. I'd like to drink...I'd like to enjoy it at least, but it's beyond me at this point. My sister (older and therefore wiser?) said that once you reach a certain point in your 20's, you prefer beer aboveall other things. God I hope this is true. It's okay for me to not like alcohol now, but once I hit legal drinking age, socially, I'm doomed. Will I have to be resigned to a life of "No thank you, I'm driving," or "I'll just have a cranberry juice/ginger ale/water w/ a wedge of lemon."? I do not like being around drunk people unless I can be drunk as well. That's not to say I've ever been drunk, given my aforementioned taste preferences, I'd find it difficult to down enough liquor to get to that point. Simply, I don't like being around peopl who have things I want and can't have. Envy is a sin, I know, but I don't envy material goods, I envy abilities and skills. In this case, the ability to enjoy alcohol. It's like instant heartburn or indegestion for me. Apparently the burning, searing pain tearing it's way through your vitals and making a beeline for your bladder is a pleasant sensation to most people. I even went so far as to try mixing a tablespoon of Baja Rosa with about 2 cups of milk and ice cubes trying to make it bearable, and it almost was (lovely strawberries and cream flavour) but then I made the mistake of thinking about tequila and wondering if there was a worm of some kind in the bottle and then I nearly threw up. It must be said however that I drank 3/4 of that glassful and I'm proud of the fact. Even though it was probably only 25% actually Baja Rosa at that point. This whole drinking issue makes me so sad I could cry. I will not be able to enjoy the holiday season or any other social occasion where liquor flows like water, simply because I have this thing called a gag reflex. Alcohol is great. A lovely thing. In the words of Ben Franklin "beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy." My inablity to consume said beer or any other alcohol for that matter is what I like to call "proof that Satan hates me and wants me to be miserable." What I need is a smooth-drinking cool kind of liquor. Actually I'm okay with Dubonnet. It's not too bad, and it doesn't burn as much as everything else I've tried, (read: Communion wine, rye and Baja Rosa,) but sadly you pay 6 bucks or similar for something akin to a shot glass in size. Thus I need to find a cheaper way to get drunk.

Or perhaps I should look into joining a convent. Ohhh there's an idea. Talk about dropping me behind enemy lines. I'm not Roman Catholic, in fact I'm Anglican, which is about the biggest slap in the face possible for Roman Catholicism. Basically a religious denomination formed on the basis of a randy British King declaring he wanted a legal harem, so he broke with the Roman Catholic Church and made his own Church, by which he was both King and Pope, yet it was (and is) still referred to as a part of "the Holy Catholic Church" (according to the Apostle's Creed.) So it's like this: say you have an Italian restaurant, Luigi's. Luigi, the owner, says to the cook, Mario: "you cannot-a make-a ze spaghetti sauce-a with-a ze fettuchini noodles! Only spaghetti noodles with-a ze spaghettie sauce-a!" Mario is a little bit disgruntled, because he really really really wants to try the same sauce on the fettuchini noodles. So, Mario quits his job, buys the property next to the same restaurant, and opens his own restaurant, with pretty much the same menu, only a different name, (Mario's,) and (here's the kicker) he serves spaghetti sauce on whatever kind of pasta he damn well pleases! Luigi is shocked and horrified when he sees his sacred spaghetti sauce served over first fettuchini, then bow-tie pasta, then *gasp* ravioli! So the two restaurant owners live side by side but never talk to each other, one thinking he has made a kick-ass upgrade from stodgy old Luigi's regime, the other thinking that Mario and all the patrons of his restaurant are damend to Hell for all eternity for mucking up the covenant of pasta/sauce combinations. This is basically what happened with Henry the 8th's split from the Roman Catholic Church. And here I stand today, wondering if I ought to join a Roman Catholic convent and wondering if they'd even let me in. The nuns would probably curbstomp me, given the chance. Not like the cool nuns from the Sound of Music who take apart the Nazi's car so they can't chase the Von Trapp brats across the border. I'd like to know how they learned to do that. Is there some kind of auto-shop class being taught in Austrian convents since at least the late 1930's that I'm unaware of? I'd also like to know why the Von Trapps went to Switzerland of all places. They'd return to Austria in 15 years and be unable to do more than eat chocolate, make watches and army knives and fiddle with allen keys while trying to put together furniture. And why, if they're all Austrian, do the Von Trapps and most of their friends have American/Canadian/British accents? Julie, this isn't Darling Lili. You're not a German pretending to be British. You're a Brit pretending to be Austrian and failing utterly. Funny enough, only the bad guys have accents (read: Germans.) And even so, Rolf, who turns out to be the spawn of Satan, has an American accent. You half expect the Aryan Rolf to show up, re-named Ralph, wearing 50's style swim shorts, hugging a surfboard and shouting "Radical, dude!" while sporting a longer, sunbleached Californian hairstyle along with a sun-kissed tan. Liesle (Americanized as Leslie) will end up a chain-smoking housewife, married to Rolf, with two perfect children, only a 50's version of Desperate Housewives. While Rolf is away at work (generic "businessman"--Mafia much?) she goes on a bender and beats the kids. June Cleaver...with a meat cleaver. And pearls. So then she wipes the blood off the pearls and meets her hubby at the door looking daisy-fresh. "Where are the kids?" "Taking a nap." The Eternal Nap, that is. Then Ralph gets it in the back of the skull with a frying pan. Leslie takes all the cash from beneath the mattress and runs away...to Switzerland.

Alcohol, religion, and the Sound of Music: Good Things-->GUNNED DOWN!

My point? Switzerland is the source of all evil. Everything the Swiss touch they turn to crap. Evil crap.