Time is only a concept

By El Hombre

- Page 1 -

I'm a cheap, cheap bastard. I hate to see things go to waste. My skin-flintery has led me to make some decisions that, in hindsight, were poor. I've found in the back of a cupboard a can of crab meat that had become convex from internal pressure and decided that it should be fine, as long as it was mixed with macaroni and cheese. Sandwich meat is good for up to a month, and is only tossed when the combined foulness of odour, consistency and colour are too repulsive to bear. I fight Murphy and his damned law by picking up and eating the toast that inevitably falls butter side down. I consider best before dates loose recommendations. These are bad, stupid, regrettable decisions that I know I'll continue to make. Every once in a while, though, the determination to consume that which should've been consumed a long time ago comes up a winner.

My father, since the beginning of my memory, has every Christmas mixed a batch of his infamous intoxicant laden eggnog. Many of you think you know what I'm talking about, but you don't. You can't just strut on down to the local Safeway, drop $2 on a carton of Lucerne Eggnog and lace it with whatever rum is lying around the house. No, this is a carefully planned, ritualistic blending of egg yokes, creams, sugar and a vast and varied army of liquors with time, love and devotion. It's a thing of beauty. Eventually, I managed to coax the recipe from my Dad and the tradition has now been embraced by my circle of friends and has become the most anticipated yearly bacchanal of all. In truth, it's an article in itself that I may someday write if convinced that the world is ready for the recipe. This isn't that article.

The liquid smelled toxic, which of all the possible smells was probably the best we could've hoped for.

On the night of the nogging, though unintentionally, much of the nog is usually consumed. The nog is actually supposed to last for a few days as a festive drink around the house with guests. Rarely is this the case. The grand nog-up results in an anti-nog backlash amongst the hungover that lasts for much of a year. What you end up with is a relatively small amount of nog (500ml to 1 litre) that no one wants to touch. Because I'm the guy who can't throw anything out, it usually end up in my fridge taking up space and frightening people until I break and toss it sometime in April. Not this year.

Recently in this merry month of May, Dr. Jimmy Mahonahan and I were lounging in my basement Tiki Bar over a couple of beers, wondering what to do. So we decided to open a couple more beers to help us wonder. I opened the fridge and Jimmy noticed a plastic contained with a greyish tan cream within.

"Tell me that's not…" he began, but he knew me well enough to know that the answer was…

"Yes. That's the nog." I hadn't had my traditional April breakdown. The nog had survived to see May. "Want some?"

"Nooo…"

"Aw, come on. I just had some last week," I lied. "It's fine"

"Seriously?"

"Yeah. There's a slight nail polish remover aftertaste, but it did me no harm." I figured I could convince him to drink some if I made it sound slightly dangerous, but I approached it nonchalantly.

"Yeah, I'll have some, if you have some."

Damn. Clever devil that I am, I was now backed into a corner. My buff called, my options were to cave or drink. There really was no option. I pulled the plastic jug from the fridge and found some clean glasses. As I unscrewed the top, slivers of dried nog littered the tabletop. The liquid smelled toxic, which of all the possible smells was probably the best we could've hoped for. I poured. We toasted the traditional, "See you in the Emergency Ward" and downed the nog.

Hm.

"That's actually pretty good."

"I know. Weird."

We hypothesised there was enough liquor in there to kill any of the little bugs that make eggs and milk go nasty. So we drank up more nog. Our minds expanded. We wrote a script for the old TV Fantastic Four cartoon in which the Rhino steals the world's most powerful underwater bulldozer from Mr. Fantastic's Atlantis Reconstruction Project to reshape the Earth in his own image. Obviously, the vintage eggnog opened a door in our subconscious, unleashing primordial creative juices. Or we were drunk stupid. Either way, I'm glad I drank that nog.