5/11/10 Poor Dead Brother Larry

So the last time I was up visiting the Seester in Chicago, she invited a bunch of her co-workers out for cocktails and to meet me. Invariably during these kinds of things, someone always notices that I don't drink alcohol. Of any kind. Ever. (Or coffee, or carbonated beverages for that matter, but mostly it's the alcohol). It's not that I have any kind of moral or health reasons for abstaining...I just flat-out don't enjoy the taste. If you try to explain this to people, however, it always kicks off a game of "Have you ever tried..." (This is a game where people name off their favorite drinks and are just sure that you would loooooove it if you just tried it...here, I'll order one...no really...no really!...You'll love it!...Okay, now take a sip of that and tell me you don't love it...really?...not at all?...huh...well, okay then. Then everyone is bummed and a little weirded out because what kind of person hates their white bloody Russian mai tai sunrise margarita tonic with lime?)

Anyway, I was explaining this phenomenon to Seester before everyone arrived, and we agreed that instead of dissing their nasty drinks, what I really needed was a story.

Enter Larry.

Larry, we decided, was our poor deceased brother. (Need an extra sibling? Just invent one!) Unfortunately, brother Larry wasn't long for this made-up world, because almost immediately after popping into existence, he was ruthlessly run down by a beer truck. (A small microbrewery whose name we didn't catch so as to avoid defamation in future retelling). It was all very sad, and I swore after it happened that I'd never drink again. Moment of silence at the table for Larry. Poignant lesson learned, and no one ever follows it up with telling me, "Dead brother aside, have you ever tried..."

Note: We did not actually ever use this story on anyone, so don't be sending me hate mail about soaking up fake sympathy for a brother that never actually existed. It was more of a joke just between us.

Anyway, we'd reference poor dead brother Larry every now and then as an ongoing joke, but lately I'd decided that poor Larry had gotten a little stale (no pun intended) and I needed to spice things up. Therefore, I am including a copy of the text message transcript between Seester and myself about officially retiring poor Larry:

From: Me
To: Seester
11:39 PM

Please be advised: I have decided to retire poor dead brother Larry. Instead, I shall henceforth tell people that regretfully, I am a mean drunk, and even though the manslaughter charges were eventually dropped, I loathe to ever allow myself to lose such control again. In fact, I will be so tortured that I will refuse anyone to even speak of the dreadful circumstances surrounding the event in question.

I believe this gives me a persona of mystery and hard won self-control while still letting people know that I am one bad mo-fo.

Please make a note of it.

From: Seester
To: Me
7:06 AM

RIP Larry. Anything in particular bring about these revisions to our dear family tree? Or do you just prefer to be one bad mo-fo?

From: Me
To: Seester
2:26 PM

Well obviously mo-fo trumps unfortunate sibling any day. But no, It just came to me out of nowhere and I decided that this would be better motivation with a more permanent outcome on my behavior. Plus it allows you to imbibe without appearing to be the heartless evil sister who never cared a whit for dear Larry or the ill-fated lessons his death teaches.

You're welcome.

From: Seester
To: Me
3:35 PM

We all cope differently. Got it. Dead Larry out, badass mo-fo in.
By the way, patto says we are sick for ever inventing and then killing off Larry.

From: Me
To: Seester
4:21 PM

Oh sure, like Patto never created and then offed a phantom sibling. Certainly not his long-lost twin Guido (or as I refer to him in my blog, Grubby).

Besides, we didn't kill off Larry. The beer truck did.

So. There you have it. Larry's out, my criminal past is in, my brother-in-law thinks we're deranged. (Nothing new there).

(Also, just as clarification, Patto is Stubby on here. Seester's Hubby condenses to Stubby, get it? And no, he doesn't actually have, or ever claimed to have, a twin named Guido, but if he did, I'd so be calling him Grubby. Or at least Gubby, but I like Grubby better).

Another illuminating example of why I am, in fact, insane. (And how it apparently runs in the family, poor brother Larry excluded).