Dog Interrupted

   It was a tragic case of canine-us interrupt-us as Madeleine was left behind when everyone she loved attended the University of Miami/University of Florida football game this weekend. She was terribly torn over which team's jerseys to wear, as she possesses both, and owing to the facts that she was born a 'Cane but attended the 2009-2010 academic year at UF, settled upon nudity.
   Meanwhile, her mommy was corralled into the car at the ungodly hour of 8 A.M. and began observing thousands of people binge drinking for the subsequent nine hours. Binge drinking is defined as the heavy episodic drinking of five or more drinks at once for males and four or more drinks at once for females. I'm heavily disgusted with myself in that I met these criteria, but even more appalled that society (and all of my family and friends) have normalized these episodes without a thought given to the physiological consequences:

-gastrointestinal distress (the poignant medical term "beer shits" comes to mind)
-immunosuppression (not to mention your drunk ass is more likely to touch your mucosal membranes, not wash your hands, and kiss foul strangers. Or worse...someone wearing denim on denim. Yech.)
-acetylaldehyde accumulation in your liver. (Does that sound like it causes cancer or cirrhosis? Yep. It does.)
-infertility (don't put all your eggs in one shot glass)
-neuropathy (You thought you were senile already at 25? Keep drinking.)
-osteporosis ("I've got hollow bones." Name that sitcom.)
-dehydration (Coconut water isn't even going to save you.)
-hypertension (Unless you're like me with a perpetual 91/59 reading of a corpse, you could probably use a little less diastole/systole action in your body.)
-stroke
-a host of cancers

I'm all about the occasional 1-2 glasses of Riesling with my dinner meal, but there is no good reason for ten shots of Herradura. Ever. Americans just seem to have extremism down to a science; grind out 60 billable hours a week in a monkey suit and then go Bacchanalian Animal House Miley Cyrus at Friday happy hour. It makes zero sense to me. I'd much rather savor a beachside Miami Vice with fish tacos and SPF 50 or a decadent Patron on ice (stacks on deck are welcome as well), but it seems my contemporaries would rather dehydrate the extracellular ions out of themselves with beers from a CAN (for shame) and dry heave their way through Sundays. Non, merci.
   Heaven forbid we all take a page out of Madeleine's book and stick to water. And the occasional piece of cheese.

Happily Ever After,
Mon and Mads