A Social Misfit

I must admit that I have always been a true social misfit. After a one night binge many years ago as a Freshman at Princeton, I decided even in the case of peer pressure not to ever drink anything that I use  in the lab to kill cells.But I guess I should explain the "binge" comment: Well, one night I decided to see what being drunk was like so I bought a fifth of scotch and several six packs, and my roomates mixed the scotch with beer and I gulped it down and ran up and down the stairs in my dorm to  get it into my system quicker. I don't remember much but my roomate told me that I tried to jump out a window at one point saying that I could fly. I woke up the next morning  in the shower where my roomies had put me since I was vomiting so  much. By the evening I was capable of crawling to the campus Infirmary and telling them I was dying. Not fun at all.

In any case that was my last drink of alcohol. Full disclosure: I have sipped sweet Begium beers and Manichevitz wine once or twice.

Not drinking is a hard thing to do and my friends and colleagues must think I am a nut case when I sip Root Beer at wine-tasting parties. But I long ago stopped worrying what people thought of me. And it has led me to become an expert on the many vintages of Cream Soda and Root Beer. Dick Siegel, a colleague and close friend at UCLA, once held a Cola tasting party. I was not aware that there were so many different varieties of Cola. Dick was careful to decant each and read off the vintage year and bottling location (i.e. Philadelphia, 1998) before having people do the tasting. He offered Cheetos to clean the palate between tastings. This party was incidentally held the same night that another colleague was having a gourmet wine-tasting party.

A digression: I really think that the love affair people have with "good" wines and beers is due to mass hysteria induced by television and books since I cannot believe that anyone sincerely likes the taste of alcohol in a drink. To me, wine-tasting is a cultural affectation, but I figure that as long as it is not harmful to others let them do it.

Another digression: My wife claims that "Root Beer" is also an acquired taste that is uniquely American. She says it smells to her like Ben Gay. It is indeed true that none of my foreign postdocs over the years could stand even the smell of Root Beer. Be that as it may, my favorite always been A & W Root Beer in a frosty mug, but the closely related Birch Beer and IBI Root Beer come close. I will always remember the cross country trip I took coming from Philadelphia to my first job at UCLA, stopping at every A &W along the way. And of course the ultimate drink is Sasparilla, which is a sort of Root Beer but very hard to find. I recently looked up the difference between Sasparilla and Root Beer and here it is if you are interested: Root beer is also flavored with sarsaparilla root but has additional flavorings from "sassafras, anise, burdock, cinnamon, dandelion, ginger, juniper, vanilla and wintergreen". Wow!

OK. I finally got all this off my chest and I will retire in two years with a clear conscience.