Posted on 09/24/2005 5:44:27 PM PDT by Rodney King
My daughter is barely 2-and-a-half years old. That's hardly enough time to make assumptions about her life or personality but I can already tell one thing about her: Drunks and boozehounds really like her a lot.
I don't know how soon after she was born that her appeal to alcoholics first appeared. Actually, I didn't notice at first because most of the people drinking alcohol around her during her first few months were family and friends, so their interest in my child didn't seem booze-influenced.
We were living in University Heights at the time and I used to walk her down Park Boulevard, past bars and restaurants, and I noticed that many of the folks who used to make baby faces or funny noises at my daughter were at the restaurants that served wine or beer.
Funny thing is, the sober people basically ignored my child.
As much as any parent wants their child to be "special" (but not too special), I'm not sure I understand why my daughter is so charismatic to tipsy people. But I first began to understand her power over boozehounds last year on Maui, at a wine and food festival. We couldn't get a babysitter so we brought Alex to the wine and food fest figuring she would sleep through most of it. The Hawaiian gods were on our side because our "pooh bear" stayed asleep while my wife and I went to Khalua Pig heaven, taking turns drinking samples of vino with gourmet vittles.
My wife and I did get slightly buzzed but not as much those adults who didn't bring their children to an adult event. When Alex was waking up (and I was close to falling asleep), a fellow attendee started looking at her and saying how beautiful she was.
Then she started doing a hula version of "Somewhere over the Rainbow," complete with hand gestures, and my then 1-year-old couldn't blink.
Then the happy hula dancer got a revelation. "Your daughter is so spiritual. She didn't blink once while I was singing."
That isn't the only experience. I live in a La Mesa condo complex and spent many afternoons with my daughter swimming in the pool. Many of our neighbors were also there, often with a box of Franzia wine.
The panic-prone might view the combination of drunken neighbors, a 2-year-old and me as potentially dangerous but I found advantages to have tipsy neighbors.
For instance, the wine-soaked neighbors were very generous about lending their pool toys and one woozy woman -- the "Earth Mother" -- was willing to watch my daughter do the same pool trick over and over and over again and be suitably impressed each time.
I expect my daughter's popularity will rise to new heights this fall. She has a whole new batch of skills that are sure to worm their way into any drinker's heart.
Because the Padres are going to be in the playoffs, chances are, I'll take my family to a viewing party. Well, my daughter can say, "Go Padres!" Trust me, drunks love it. She also says, "Go Chargers!" and I'm working on, "Go L.T."
I am also planning for Christmas parties by teaching her to sing, "Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer'" and recite the Nativity speech spoken by Linus in the Charlie Brown Christmas Special.
Granted, not every one of her bits is perfect for every drunk audience but I think she'll be way ahead of her schoolmates in terms of impressing social drinkers.
The big upside to turning Alex into the drunk's favorite kid has paid off in dividends. We have lots of free time thanks to the number of single and soused people who meet our child at a party and offer to baby-sit.
To some, my beliefs that my daughter should be well-versed in dealing with drunks seems counterintuitive but hear me out. Alcohol plays a big part in a baby's life -- mostly in conception -- and maybe kids should learn at a young age not just to say no to booze but also to recognize signs of inebriation.
As for me, I am avoiding booze mostly so when I am with Alex, she knows how a sober person acts when excited and she'll learn the difference between beer compliments and the real thing.
David Moye is a La Mesa-based writer. He craved a dirty vodka martini while writing this story.
Me thinks this fellow was sh!tfaced by the time he finished his "brilliant" essay about boozers and coming to that asinine statement; can believe it got printed!
"What is a dirty martini?"
A martini that spills, but you're so drunk that you aren't able to implement the five second rule before licking it off the bar???
You can be sure David Moye voted for Clinton.
I have to admit that I am a "sack of shit plagiarist!".
I saw that pic here on FR and knew there were threads where it simply had to be.
My apologies to the originator, but imitiation, and outright plagiarism are the purest form of flattery!
It could be much worse, buddy. Look at the positive side...at least your daughter's not attracting liberals.
I think the guy noticed that drunk people are friendly to his kid, and wrote a tongue-in-cheek goofy article about that observation.
Oh, for crying out loud. The answer is obvious - he's a drunk and so are all his friends.
Hahah!
This is one of the stranges articles I've ever read.
Yours: "Conservatives drink to excess too."
Mine: I never said they didn't. I agree with you.
Yours: "Everyone thinks his child is unique and special, even pubs."
Mine: I disagree that every one thinks his child is "special" in the sense of the case being discussed in this thread: that a child can be specially talented from some mysterious aspect of birth, spiritually unblinking. I assume what you mean by special is " my lovely child, flesh of my flesh." Thats not the type of special we are discussing in this thread. Those who think their child is mysteriously gifted tend to think all they have to do is let destiny take its course, rather than communicate the wisdom of one's family lineage to one's child, so that child has a chance to be truly special. This delineates one difference among many between liberal and conservative thinking on child rearing.
Any bets on how dad voted in the last federal election, that is if he indeed did vote? I would bet he voted a full Democratic ticket, or some other non-Republican alternative, unless he simply lives his life one way and manages to think another, an unlikely proposition.
I see the "special kids" alongside the "non-special" kids all the time, and I can asure you as a teacher that the later cope with the world much more genuinely, accurately and effectively, unconcerned about Utopian alternative
life styles, wherein that mysterious something is what matters most.
I don't know for sure but think you read more into what he said than he said.
I do think some children, babies, are like flypaper. People just like them, they have a good smile and want to relate to strangers. Some babies are just dumb looking and you pass them right by. And some babies are ugly as sin and you avert your eyes.
And some babies I have seen have a magnetic quality, and I think that is inborn. Where it leads I don't know. But I suspect they continue attracting people and have an easy time of it in life. That can be a good thing or a bad thing depending on the parents. It is not particularly gifted or magical, just a trait.
It's obvious that the reason the sober people paid no attention to his kid was that they could still see.
I do believe that liberals and conservatives tend to rear children very differently. This concerns me because the political and social polarization of our people is becoming intergenerationally institutionalized. I have to deal with the dynamic every day inside a highly structured high school environment.
I guess the article struck a nerve and you have convinced me to chill,thanks!
The last thing I would want for my daughter is to develop a continuing mutual attraction with those who must alter their perception of the world through the nectar of the grape, which I too ocassionally enjoy. Perhaps Bacchus is very much alive and well, and
we should propitiate him by offering up our special children, just like in ancient times, to the temple in which he dwells. Those temples may be all around us and we may not even know it?
Yours: "It's obvious that the reason the sober people paid no attention to his kid was that they could still see."
Ping!
Yes this child is for sure in trouble, because it's parents keep taking it to places where the booze hounds hang out!
Yep, he probably had a deadline, didn't know what to write and this idea popped in his head. He tried to make it funny and it just came out weird. To take him seriously, or psychoanalyze him, is to totally miss the point.
I'm sure she'll be a lot of fun when she grows up.
Please, somebody call Child Services, our author is exploiting his child to write bad prose.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.