confessing ...

... to being a hopeless reprobate, with very few redeeming features. I never touched a drop of alcohol until I left home at seventeen and went off to college: a gullible, naive, ignorant, blissfully unaware, sheltered young soul. I had to go that first summer a couple of weeks after finishing high school due to the lack of math credits on my transcript. The administration accepted my application with the understanding I would go to summer school and take a non-credit (!!!) math course in order to get up on par with other freshmen. Ha! Guess I showed them: I never, ever,  not even today got up to par!

Still hopelessly inept with math skills, and aggravated each month when my bank statement comes and I have to add and subtract over and over and over and over to try to have my numbers come out even with what the bank thinks. It is a never ending struggle. I will always be thankful to my dad for sending me off to college, and the time he invested to teach me how to reconcile the register with the statement. But he never took into account that my brain is not wired the way his was: Mr. Business Administration major loved to juggle numbers and finagle figures, even when his vision got so bad  he had to do it with a magnifying glass.

I discovered beer when I was sent away to college. I still like it, when it is sort of sissy-fied and not so strong it is bitter and foul tasting. My favorite used to be Miller Lite, until I discovered a strange brand I found in Florida many years ago. We were vacationing, I went in a drug store and saw Pearl Light. I don't know what made me buy and try. It is very mild tasting, not actually beer-y at all, probably similar in flavor to those non-alcoholic beers like O'Douls that are refreshing when cold with no alcohol content.

It is produced by the Pearl Brewing Company in Ft. Worth Texas. So scarce on this side of the Big Muddy, you have to know some one who is going to TX to get it. I was recently surprised with two 24 packs  imported from the far side of the Mississippi for me to enjoy. Amusing that I had one lone little can in the fridge, saved for the dire-est of emergencies, so I could  console myself with the knowledge that I was not completely out! Now that I have restocked, I can drink that last lonesome 12 ounces without fear that it is the last one on the planet.

I am not really a serious beer drinker: the two cases that have found their way to GA will probably last me a couple of years. When you are confronted with the questionnaire about your bad habits, where you must admit to substance consumption/abuse: I don't really go in for risky behavior. My worst addiction is those sugary, fatty cappuccinos from the curb store. I say no to tobacco use, and no to drugs and nearly no to alcohol, might drink once a week, usually less. So if there are degrees of sin, and it is not so black and white as the preacher says, I am nearly, almost, semi-spotless. As my grandmother would say: "Just a wee bit."