Bring me the liver of John the Baptist

Remember when you were a teenager? You were starting to drink, but you had no idea about the power of booze. The best thing that could happen to you was that you would get hammered on cheap vodka and spin around a few times and fall over and throw up, y'know "Welcome to the awesome power of booze, junior" and that would pretty much be the end of it. You now know your limits.

Being a little bit older than that now, but not any wiser it would seem, I performed an experiment similar to the above exercise the other night, with spectacular results. The purpose of the experiment was to see how many martinis and vodka 'n' limes I can safely drink in two hours. The results of the experiment have been documented in the latest edition of an esteemed medical journal, but I will summarise them here as 0 < x < (i+j) (where i is the number of martinis and j the number of vodka 'n' limes). The experiment was actually conducted in two parts - (1) as above and (2) a follow on experiment to determine how much hard liquor I could then consume as quickly as possible and still remain standing.

I started at home with three home-made martinis - put it down to a combination of boredom and nerves. That night I had a date of sorts ("a couple of drinks after work") so after having fortified myself so effectively, I strolled downtown to meet her. We repaired to the nearest dark, quiet bar (Good Luck) where we drank vodka dressed with tortured lime flesh. After two of these, we moved on to Tupelo where Ms. Brown was holding her birthday drinks. "Brainwave" I thought, "I'll buy a round of 1951 martinis for myself and 'the date'". Beautiful drink, beautifully made, the only problem? She didn't like it. No problem, I fetched for her another vodka 'n' lime. Not one to waste a beautiful drink though - beautifully made and all - I sculled her martini and then, feeling strangely thirsty, finished mine off shortly thereafter.

It all happened in an instant. I distinctly felt a hand reach in and tie a knot in my cerebral cortex. I swayed. All my powers of reasoning and logic were gone. I was having trouble starting sentences, and even more trouble finishing them. And I needed air. Date decides it's time to go home. End of part (1). The answer to the problem in question is less than 5 martinis and 2 vodka 'n' limes, in about two hours.

The rest of the night passed in a whirl. One Manhattan and another vodka 'n' lime later and I began to have trouble staying on my feet - not helped by my enthusiasm for a birthday dance with Ms. Brown from which we both ended up sustaining injuries on the concrete. We left Tupelo soon after for a friend's place where we were served COLOSSAL vodka 'n' sodas in those COLOSSAL wine glasses - they really were inappropriately large. Later still we walked back across town to Havana. You must bear in mind that it is only due to the precepts of logic and the post-match analysis that I can relate this to you as I have absolutely no recollection of doing so. At Havana I couldn't talk, could hardly stand, and was having trouble seeing. Got separated from the others, couldn't find them, panicked, and went home, stopping only for chocolate milk and random kleptomania at the mini-mart.

I'd actually advocate performing a similar experiment every few years or so - it was a quite useful undertaking - but obviously not in quite the same circumstances. My predilection and propensity for making a complete twat of myself in front of the people for whom I have the least desire to make a complete twat of myself in front of is quite breathtaking.

Image courtesy of http://agrino.org/elocon/fun/04