I seem to have lost my funny. I’ve started a few posts, but they all seem a wee bit forced. So instead of coming up with new material, I’m going to foist on you a story I’ve told a million times. You heard it here first, number 4 on my 25 Things Meme:

I had my first hangover in second grade and had to call out of Catholic school sick.

My dad’s family business was beer distributor in Philadelphia. The business no longer exists, having gone under after my dad left in the late 1980s.  However, since I was small, I had always been around beer.  One room in our basement, the beer room, was decorated with bier steins and mirrors from companies like Paulaner, Dinkelaker and Löwenbräu. My sister and I wore dirndls to Oktoberfest, took German dancing lessons and slept in t-shirts with Dempsey’s Irish Beer emblazoned on the front.  We took turns sipping from Dad’s beer bottle and, apparently, liked the taste.

From about age 3 to age 8 I lived in the same house my Dad grew up in, which is on the same street as the house my Mom grew up in. Between the houses is a church and a Catholic school. My mother’s mother still lives in the house where my Mom grew up, and my grandfather is buried in the cemetery across the street from the church.  My parents went to the same Catholic school where I went for first and second grade.

In the basement of this house where I lived was the playroom I shared with my sister. To get to the playroom you had to pass through the beer room. I pretended as I passed through that room, with its wine colored carpet and dark wood paneling, that I was traveling through another country. In unfinished part of the playroom, where we weren’t supposed to go, was an old refrigerator that was hooked up to work as a kegerator. There was a tap affixed to the outside of the refrigerator that poured golden beer, usually Dinkelaker, from the keg on the inside. I knew how this worked because, as a young lady of 7 or 8, I was occasionally sent to fetch a beer for my Dad, carefully tipping the cup so that foam would not accumulate at the top.  I relished this task, as any little girl does. The chance to do something for Dad. To be useful. And, of course, to be rewarded with a sip of beer.

One day I was playing in the playroom with my sister and wanted to have a tea party. My mom would not let me have juice for the party, but I was not deterred. I had another fountain of delicious amber liquid for my party. I filled up all of my little kitchen toys, including a rinsed out 48oz ketchup bottle, with beer. And drank it.  Little AnonNY had her first kegger.

Naturally I did not know of the intoxicating effects of beer and soon after I was wandering around the basement yelling, “Mommy, I’m blind, I’M BLIND!”  My mother raced down the steps thinking I had some sort of brain problem, rather than a moderation problem, but knew as soon as she hit the basement what had happened. The smell of beer was a dead giveaway. I puked it all up, but not after making a (very petite) ass of myself. For one, I could not tell my parents apart. Let’s just say that they don’t really look alike. At all.

The next day I stayed home from Catholic school, but only for a half a day. I had to go in after lunch and Sister Elaine knew exactly why. Mom had told her!

I learned my lesson for the time being. I didn’t drink again until college and even the smell of beer made me nauseous. When I got to college, Dad and I resumed our beer relationship and he taught me a lot. I’m just as much fun at a kegger as I was in second grade, but I hold my own much better.

If I start yelling for mommy, though, watch out.