The Cork Didn't Fall Far From the Bottle

Aunt Shyla and Uncle Duck are off to Florida for two months (thanks for the invite by the way) so we went to wish them a safe trip. As it was 4:00 o’clock, we started the afternoon with a lovely cuppa and some little nibbley bits. Being the expert conversationalists that we are, our visit spilt over into cocktail hour so we started on martinis.

I truly enjoy these visits, especially the stories about relatives and little tid-bits of our family history. It seems the older you get, the more your parents are willing to share. It turns out that my grandmother was known as ‘the sister who drinks’ by her siblings. I saw her drink at holiday dinners, but that was about it. Apparently her family gave new meaning to the word dry. At least the sisters did, but not the men they married. Not to say they were all lushes. That took another couple of generations to perfect - and boy have we! Ok, I.

One Christmas it was my mom’s Aunt Nita’s turn to host. First I need to give her snaps for hosting a holiday dinner (or any dinner for that matter) for 30 people! Those country folk sure knew how to breed. My mother, Aunt Shyla and Co. (7 in all) piled into the family Oldsmobile and headed off to Aunt Nita’s - the driest of the dry. Uncle Harold however didn’t want his male guests to go without, so some weeks before had stashed two bottles of whiskey in one of the air ducts.

He asked the men to join him in his study (whatever happened to the good old days when men disappeared into a cloud of cigar smoke after dinner to enjoy a brandy?) and proceeded to remove the vent cover and pull out his treasure. Unbeknownst to him, Aunt Nita observed this little performance and lay her iron hands around his wrists. She took him into the kitchen, put his arms over the sink and with a simple twist sent that liquid amber goodness down the drain.

At this point Uncle Sterling (and PS, in my next life I want that name. I mean Robert is great and all, but Sterling? Come on! That THE name) was kicking himself - “if I had brought a straw I would go drink that out of the septic tank” he griped. He seems to have had his own stash somewhere that Little Ms. Prohibition didn’t find and dispose of in order to save his soul. Suffice it to say that he was “ill” early in the evening and was quite pleased that he had made enough room to enjoy another Christmas dinner.