Heather "Can Drink Jack Daniels Like a Fish"

Happened 2002
Written 2009

Visiting friends in the Irish city of Cork, one of my friends thought it would be a good idea to bring me to his local pub where he often drinks with lots of his hometown mates. He invited his friends and one of his brothers to the pub and being cordial and a good host to someone in his city, one of his friends offered to buy me a drink.

After several minutes of insisting that he didn't need to buy me the beverage, afterall, I'm quite literally just the friend of a friend, he asked if I liked Jack Daniels. My reply was, "oh I drink Jack Daniels like a fish," and sealed my fate by issuing a drinking claim to an Irishman. His reply was something along the lines of "oh do you now?" and then he handed me a glass of greenish looking liquid and said "try this". I realize now that it was only a tad off from a lynchburg lemonade, but with Rosies Lime Cordial instead of lemonade. But after tasting the drink I said that it was very nice and would let him buy me one.

The young man obliged and bought me a triple Jack Daniels and lime. I toasted him and took a sip. His response was "oh no, you said you drank JD like a fish girly, down your neck." By that time, I had spent 6 months in Europe and was quite tired of hearing the same old same old "Americans can't hold their drink"
so I tipped the glass back and polished off the welcome beverage as quickly as I could manage.

Shortly after the small tumbler of alcohol was gone I was part of the way through my pint (which I picked specifically because I would have to drink that slower) when the term liquid courage started to take effect and challenged our mutual friend to a drinking contest- first one to down a bottled alco-pop won. Just to give you an idea of how foolish this was, my friend is a guy, 6'4 and had been drinking for at least 4 or more years than I had, and I'm 5'2, a girl and had never beaten him in a drinking contest since I'd known him. In fact, I've only ever won one drinking contest and that was because I had sheer stubborness on my side and held a red hot cinnamon liquer in my mouth until I burned all of the first layer of skin off the inside of my cheeks. Anything that had to do with speed on the other hand I lost abysmally, and this was no exception, I just downed half a bottle of alcohol and the only result was I started feeling more tipsy.

I got up to excuse myself to the ladies room and must have stammered or swayed because my friend's brother was now in on the new game of how drunk can we get the American girl before she says 'uncle'. I insisted that I was NOT drunk and then to prove it tipped my head back and touched my nose with alternating fingertips. He then instructed me to "pick up one foot" and I failed parlessly by wilting to my right. After responding to their sneers with a few choice words and coinciding sign-language I made my way to the hallway with three doors, one labeled ladies, one labeled gentlemen, and one labeled disabled.

Somewhere around ten minutes later, I could hear my friends outside the bathroom door calling my name and then the astonished "she's not in here?!" I hadn't made it to the ladies room which was the farthest door to my left at the end of the hallway. In my drunken state I reasoned that I was in fact disabled by alcohol and probably wouldn't have made it down to the end of the hallway in my high heeled boots without breaking something.

The story ends with my head hung in shame waiting for a taxi to take us back to my friend's house having to admit to him and every one else that "No, Heather cannot drink Jack Daniels like a fish afterall."

Heather goes to the porn store

Written 2009
Happened 1999

Different birthdays come with a set of abilities and expectations. On my 10th birthday I could finally get my ears pierced, 13 I could stay up until eleven on a school night, 16th birthday drive a car, and at the magical age of 18, the age of adulthood, the states of Minnesota and North Dakota allow you to purchase cigarettes, lottery tickets and porn.

My friend's 18th birthday fell on a Monday and we were both stuck closing down the gas station we worked at. So after singing him a few bars of "happy birthday" I ceremoniously sold him (though it was with my money) some Swisher Sweets mini cigars and a few scratch offs (because a Powerball ticket didn't have that instant gratification that a scratch off does). Then I proudly slapped my hand on the counter and announced that we should go and find him some porn because that would complete the trifecta of his new title of 'adult'.

We got in the car and drove down town to the "adult bookstore," which is a fairly misleading title because as far as I recall there was only maybe one or two books in the whole store, but because Midwesterners can't stand the idea of calling a porn shop a porn shop and referring to it as an adult bookstore saves from having to explain its purpose to the kids.

So we arrive and giggle and marvel at all of the devices and material that someone somewhere actually might be interested in sexually. There was a bowl of flavored condoms on the check out desk and I grabbed a 'tasteful' three (pun intended). I felt strange just standing and staring and a sign above the desk stated that there was a $5 browsing fee if you didn't make some kind of purchase. While at the check out I also noticed that a door behind me led to a stair case and with the word "Arcade" written over the doorframe and below it said "tokens available at the desk."

Now remember that at the time I was only 19 and sweet innocent as the day is long... ok, let's just say I was niave. The only kind of "arcade" I had ever heard of was the ones at the mall or Chuck E. Cheese, so I assumed that this was a hall of raunchy video games so I bought $5 worth and told my friend, to come on down to play. The guy behind the counter didn't turn a hair and let us go down to the basement.

We marched right back up with all $5 worth of tokens in our sweaty palms as soon as we had reached the last step of the darkened basement. The "arcade" was actually several viewing booths in which customers could spend their tokens not on Playboy trademarked pinball machines, but on Playboy trademarked videos (and from the looks of it upstairs those would have been the mild ones).

White as a ghost and completely mortified (remember I bought the condoms and the tokens at the same time!) I asked the guy behind the counter if I could re-fund my tokens, and to my great disappointment he said "No." I tried explaining that we didn't know what the "arcade" was but it didn't matter until I noticed a small plaque on the other side of the cash register that said "Monday night is ladies night- 10% discount on all purchases." I asked him if I got my discount and he said "No" and promptly refunded my tokens and gave me my discount for being female and in a porn store.

I parted company with my friend shortly after telling him that his next porn purchase he'd have to do solo.