The most ludicrous stuff is going on here.
It’s my fault, because behaviorally I do not hew to the standard American middle-class way of daily living. I grew up overseas, in a remote oil colony surrounded by a culture best described as “alien” to the American way of doing things. It was like living on another planet, when that planet was inhabited by people who had no grasp of our way of life. And we, conversely, had little grasp of theirs.
The way we Americans did things, in private behind closed doors, was very different from the way the locals did things. They would (and did) regard our ways as downright immoral. But because we lived in a fenced, isolated American community, most of the time we could go about our lives as we pleased, local mores and laws notwithstanding.
Saudis, they were — the locals. In terms of what they viewed as right & wrong, what they regarded as “clean living”: about the closest we would have here are Mormons.
As you know if you live in the American Southwest, Mormonism — like Islam — forbids the use of alcohol.
But your average American Jane or Joe — unlike a Moslem, unlike a Mormon — is not really much into teetotaling. Thus, where we lived in Arabia, the isolated camps full of American company employees were populated with folks who were used to a cocktail at dinner and to getting snockered at a party.
Where did those cocktails come from? Generally from a still hidden in or near the American resident’s home. My father brewed his own alcohol for years, and after the Arab workers went home, many a fine party was held in camp, fueled by DIY booze.
Thus I grew up thinking that a cocktail at dinnertime or at party time was a normal part of life. No, we were not getting blitzed every evening after the hired help went back to their own settlements. We were having a cocktail before dinner, or a couple of swiggles during a party.
Thus it has been all of my adult life. From the time I was 18 years old. All the time I was going through the university, I dated a guy who did the same. After I graduated, we split up but I continued our usual habit with beer or low-rent wine.
The horror, eh?
Well…yeah. Turns out this is not normal behavior for a large slab of Americans.
Among them is my cleaning lady. She thinks I’m a lush because I have a glass of wine with my mid-day meal — which is my equivalent of dinner: meat, potatoes, veggie, salad. This horror, she has reported to my son, and now he thinks I sit around all afternoon swilling booze.
Yeah, you’re right: if I’d had any sense, I would have refrained from drinking wine or beer in front of her. And so I should have.
My son, having ingested her exaggerated reports, has now passed this “intelligence” along to my doctors!
No kidding! He has told them I sit around every afternoon getting snockered!
And that has created a fine fistful of trouble for me.
In the first place, short of a camera and a replayable video, I have no way of proving to these docs — or to my son — that no, I do not sit around all afternoon getting blitzed.
In the second place, this blossoming squabble means I have two choices by way of keeping the peace:
* Either get rid of ALL the alcohol in the house — all alcohol of any kind, from a bottle of gin to a tiny bottle of vanilla flavoring…
* Or sell the house, move away, and get on with my life unmolested.
Neither of these these options appeals to me. I do not want to change my lifestyle because someone else’s religion or superstition tells me what I do is naughty-naughty.
And I most certainly do not want to move away from my home, my son and my friends.
Absurd, isn’t it?
