Yes, I know this whole thing is going to sound like the ramblings of an alcoholic, bear with me.
This may come as no surprise, but this was written mostly on St. Patrick’s Day. It started when I threw a corned beef in the crock pot around 10 AM and topped off the braising liquid with half a can of year-old Guiness from last year’s St. Patrick’s Day. I used only half the can because a.) Guinness is obviously pretty strong and I didn’t want it to overpower the beef and b.) it’s a year old- because I’m really not much of a beer drinker, I do like the taste of Guinness but not quite enough to drink the whole 4-pack by myself once a year- I didn’t want to accidentally kill my whole family. I decided to give a taste just to make sure it was still good (after I had already dumped half a can in with the beef, because I am so, so smart), and then spent the next hour or so nursing this lukewarm cabinet Guinness, because I didn’t even know it was St. Patrick’s Day, why would I have had the foresight to put it in the fridge the night before.
After that ordeal was done with, I switched back to the “Irish Cream” cold brew that I had gotten while I was out grabbing the last minute corned beef earlier that morning. A little more than half-way through, I decided the artificial Irish cream flavor just wasn’t cutting it, and there just happened to be an open bottle of Bailey’s in the fridge (one of the few drinks my dad partakes in), so I figured I deserved some of the real thing, as a treat. The coffee somehow was what ended up hitting me the hardest, so I then proceeded to do some dishes, clean my bathroom, and write this (up to this point). After a good 20 minutes of productivity, I sat back down on the couch and played Splatoon 2 for an hour or 2, which honestly sounds much more realistic for someone who started drinking at 10 AM. This ended up also having the bonus side effect of giving me a little time to sober up, as I knew that I was going to have to go out and grab something for lunch eventually.
When lunchtime finally did come, I decided to keep the ball rolling and pair my McDonalds with a Lime White Claw, which I’m pretty sure was leftover when I did my seltzer write-up back in fucking August 2019. Switching back and forth between the White Claw and the McDonalds Sprite™ didn’t taste very good, so I ultimately ended up just upending the can into the comically large plastic cup. I spent the rest of the afternoon watching It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia with my sister (because if you can’t go to a real Irish pub, Paddy’s will suffice), playing more Splatoon, and trying to stay hydrated before eventually getting back to that whole “cooking” thing I was doing.
If the strange, recurring theme of me just randomly drinking things that had been sitting around for a least a year hadn’t already clued you in, this was not exactly a classy affair. Did I have that one weird peak of “productivity” in the late morning? Sure, but by 4 PM I had changed into sweatpants. It wasn’t a bottomless mimosas at brunch kind of day drinking.
But you know what? It doesn’t have to be.
I spend well over 40 hours a week at my day job, plus maybe another 3-5 writing these posts, don’t I get to unwind a little on my days off? My days off typically consist of aimlessly scrolling through Tumblr or Twitter, staying in bed until noon, and letting the ennui set in. I don’t think that it’s that much of a stretch to say that this experiment was more enjoyable than that. So why all the stigma? Is drinking 2 ½ drinks over the course of 5 hours really more socially unacceptable than drinking a pitcher of mimosas in 1 hour? Or how, back in the day when my dad had a cushy engineering job, he and his coworkers could just grab a beer or 2 on their lunch breaks? And then just, go back to work?
Is it the fact that I’m not going out to a restaurant? Ignoring the fact that we’re still, you know, in the middle of a pandemic, is drinking a bunch at brunch really that good of an idea? Unless you live somewhere with some form of reliable public transit, getting to and from the restaurant requires either calling an Uber (making it even more costly to go out), or make one of your friends DD (ruins the fun for whoever that person is, unless they enjoy herding their drunk friends). And yes, these are all issues with drinking out regardless of what time of day it is, bear with me.
Is it the fact that I was drinking alone? Actually, probably, yeah. I, as I assume most people are, tend to only really drink in social settings. Isn’t that the whole point of going out in the first place? To be where the people are? But with the bars and clubs closed, we have to make our own places where the people are. Namely, at home. Cmon, admit it, we all have that one small group of friends we’ve still been seeing this whole time. At this point, yall are probably tired of having nights in, so… why not mix it up a little by having a day in?
Let’s face it, once you reach a certain age, you just can’t go all night like that anymore. I don’t think I’m necessarily at that age yet per se, but I am at the point where pretty much any alcohol consumed pretty much any time after dinner will result in me having a less-than-stellar night’s sleep. And with my ever-changing work schedule (my earliest shift starts at 5 AM, and my latest ends at 9PM, and there’s no promises that there won’t be a late night leading into an early morning), I need to minimize any potential damage to my sleeping habits. And, dare I say it, I’d say that if anything, something about drinking during the day will ensure that that slow trickle of booze will in fact stay slow, leaving you feeling much more refreshed the morning after than a whole night of going balls to the wall. Plus, if you like to play loud music or otherwise be rambunctious, your neighbors are much more likely to file a noise complaint at 2 AM than 2 PM.
So why not get a few bottles of your drink of choice and enough take-out for you and your friends to graze on over the course of the afternoon (or, dare I say, cook something together?) and just… chill out?
Best of all, if one of you gets a spam call, you can put them on speakerphone and all drunkenly yell at them. Can’t do that when you’re drinking at night.
