My bookkeeping days are over. Butch returns Monday, Philippine Airlines having hired back some of their pilots just in time. Of course, he's going to find all the stuff I didn't have time to get to, and I'm sure he'll have a few words about the reports I filed, but I think I speak for all of us at work when I say, "Thank god. I didn't screw up."
To celebrate, I bought a small bottle of Cointreau. I remember liking the orange flavor, and in general I tend to prefer wine and brandy over beer and hard liquor. I felt decadent buying it, too; there's some part of me that cannot forget the utterly wicked reputation alcohol had in my family. Of course, in my family smoking a cigarette is an even more heinous act. So even though I'm 40, dammit, I felt slightly furtive just looking over the selection in the grocery store. Back home I unloaded the groceries, got out a glass, and poured myself a shot over ice. I swirled it around a little, then took a sniff to savor the fragrance.
It smells exactly like nail polish remover.
It tasted just the way you'd think nail polish remover would taste, too, if it were orange scented. I couldn't drink it. Next time I want some I'll have to put it in something to cut the intensity. I poured that shot right down the drain and had a cup of tea instead. I may be half Irish, but I didn't get the legendary ability to put away the booze. Not, you understand, that I would want to be a drunken lunatic, but I do wish I could cultivate a vice or two just for sociability. At this point in time, my most vicious addiction is to pistachio nuts salted in the shell.
Damn. I am so glad I didn't know when I was younger that I'd grow up to be such a horridly virtuous person. I would have been so disappointed.
