my gateway to alcoholism...

i was having a chat with my sister in law today (B-rad's brother's wife), she had just read my post about growing up Mormon. She has only ever known me as the fun loving drinking non religious woman i am today.... she was amazed to learn that Mormon's don't drink Coke* or Iced Tea... seeing how much i LOOOOOOOOVES me some Coke and Iced Tea... and Coke* and Iced Tea together (sooo tasty).

* both times i typed coke, i originally typed Cock... "Mormon's don't drink Cock".... hm...

it reminded me of a story about being a rebellious teen in my house. Before my older brother married Pam she used to come and spend the weekends at my house, as she lived about 45 minutes away on a farm... She would catch a ride to my place Friday night and then go home with her mom on Sunday after church.

She was 17 and i was 16...we would stay up late every night - and sneak out to the store and by 2L bottles of Coke and Doritos and we would fall into fits of hysterics buzzed out on the suger and the caffeine. Also, many a night would end with fried eggs and home-made-bread-toast (toasted one side at a time using the over broiler cuz our toaster was broken) made at four a.m.

So, eventually as time passed the Coke didn't cut it anymore..... Coca Cola was my gateway drug..... so we started hanging out in the local coffee shop...drinking....coffee....DUN DUN DUNNNNNNNNNNNN. we would go to the coffee shop at 11, order a plate of fries and a cup of coffee. If you've ever spent time at a small town coffee shop, you know that one cup of coffee is a bottomless pit of caffeinated bean juice. we would drink cup upon cup upon cup.... and when it seemed that the waitresses were starting to get annoyed, we'd order another plate of fries, or a grilled cheese sandwhich,....whatever it took. we'd leave sometimes around six or seven.....vibrating down the street to my home.

just hook it to my veins.....

I was an anomaly in my high school - someone who didn't watch hockey, or drink beer. or drink anything. I couldn't bring myself to drink... it was scary....

Eventally Pam and my older brother started dating, and he was a rebel... he drank and smoked and partied.... i remember one wintry day - Pam and i decided enough was enough, Brent had just ran off somewhere with his friends leaving Pam behind (which was fine by me, cuz that meant i got my friend back) to get back at him we devised a brilliant plan.... we would drink Brent's last two beer that he left in his bedroom. We cleverly snuck out the bottles in our shirts and put them in the trunk of Pam's car and backed out of the driveway in pursuit of the perfect place to drink our stolen contraband.

We drove around the back roads, and we were getting into fits of giggles. we searched for any kind of place to pull of the road to drink and finally it looked like maybe there, under the feet of snow, was an approach we could park on. So, Pam pulled onto what we thought was an approach, but turned out it was ....nothing. We drove the car into the ditch. Now. Keep in mind we were two young girls who were wearing our parkas and sneakers. not necessarily the best attire for pushing a car out of the ditch. But we tried. i pushed as well as i could but the car wouldn't budge.

Eventually a kindly stranger travelled the road and found us and asked if he could help. did we have a shovel? Yes, in the trunk. Pam popped the trunk and we could hear the clanking of our stolen brewskis as the old farmer pulled the shovel out.

another truck stopped, and now there were two old farmer and two young girls trying to push Pam's old car out of the ditch.

Finally, after 45 minutes or so of pushing and sweating and cursing under our breaths, the car was free. And the first farmer asked us, as we knew he would eventually, "How on earth did you two end up in the ditch? What were you doing?"....
uhm.....

"we were lost, and trying to turn around.... and we thought there was an approach there." good one, pam.

our secret was safe....

we thanked the men and they drove away.... we followed them back to the main road. Now we were more determined than ever to drink those beer. we try another road and instead of finding an approach we found a small clutch of trees. We pulled onto the shoulder and trudged through the snow to the trees... our feet are frozen - our socks and shoes now soaked.

FINALLY we arrived, and when we were satisfied that we were far enough from the road, we pull the bootlegged bottles from the sleeves of our jackets. We were ready. Looking back it's interesting to note that we weren't concerned about being two under aged girls illegally drinking alcohol (legal age is 19 in the Skatch for my Yankee friends). We were more concerned that we were about to drink ALCOHOL!!! The church's stand on booze was more present in our thoughts.

we cracked our long necks, raised our bottles in a toast...CHEERS...and took our first taboo sips..... and swallowed......

"That's terrible!!"
"Yeah, totally gross."
"How do people even drink this stuff?"
"...i don't know."
".....are you going to finish yours?"
"....uhm........no...... i don't think so."
"me either"

in the end, after all that work, we tipped our bottles and poured out our hard won beer.

Of course, i've come a long way since then..... :)