nin137

Hard Seltzer

as an alcoholic in recovery I am very sensitive to any alcohol related commercials. (on a side note, did you know that such commercials cannot actually show the people drinking the beverage. isn't that weird?). anyhow, hard seltzer is now the thing. everyone is in on it. how did that become a thing? I was in Europe 4 years, come back and now everyone is drinking like a sorority girl at a frat party.

anyhow, the dangers of hard seltzer are very real. the tragedy occurred with my father. here we were at some function and he was craving something sweet to drink (he can't get enough of sweet stuff, he eats these dusty cardboard cookies because they are sweet but sugar free. I seriously think those things are made of cancer). so he sidles up next to me with a hard seltzer. I'm a bit surprised because my dad almost never drinks. anyhow, not wanting to be that recovering alcoholic who mentions other people drinking I shrug it off.

about an hour later he's next to me again.
"boy this stuff is great!"
"I didn't know you liked hard seltzer"
"yeah! just check this out, it tastes nice and sweet but look at the calories!" with this he jabbed the can into my face to ensure that I could properly appreciate how little sugar there was, "ONE GRAM" he says a bit too enthusiastically (and loudly) "only 100 calories!" (I was starting to begin to understand the appeal of these things to the broader masses).

so I let him saunter off to discuss the money supply with some moron at the party. so it finally comes to the time that we have to leave. my dude is definitely fucked up and, surprisingly, he doesn't seem to notice it. so he's swaying over to the driver's side and I was like,
"dad, give the keys, you're drunk."
"no I'm not!"
"how many of those hard seltzers did you have?"
"like four," with this he paused apparently doing some math in his head, "muhbe fahve?"
"did you eat anything?"
"no you know I'm watching the calories son!"
"well you're drunk."
"how can I be drunk I didn't drink any alcohol!"
"you've been drinking hard seltzer all night!"
"what? no, that's non-alcoholic!"
"what? no! it's got like 5% alcohol in it same as a beer."

at this he gasped and seemed to be clutching imaginary pearls around his neck like an indignant 19th century aristocratic woman.
"well I never! what? you mean...I've been going around drinking one can after another and getting drunk?" with this he narrowed his eyes, lowered his voice and whispered in the same voice he uses when he's about to inform me of one of his idiot friend's conspiracy theories, "why didn't you tell me?"
"I'm not trying to make people feel awkward about drinking! didn't you feel drunk?"
"no!" he blurted out, at this point starting to breathe heavily, "I thought it was just more like an energy drink." he was close to hyper-ventilating at this point and was sticking out his tongue and staring at it accusingly.

"just give me the keys."
"you should have told me, you know I need my reading glasses to read that tiny print."
"what did you think HARD seltzer meant?"
at this point he was looking down at his hands and muttered, "I thought it just meant that it was hard on calories."