Booze and Crackers

In an attempt to be one to always try new and different things, I told my friend Stuie today that I thought i'd go to a liquor store and buy some unknown booze. Tonight, sitting in my lonely little hotel room, the smell of cigarette smoke wafting through the halls, I decided to lace up the sneakers, hit the road and do just that very thing.

As luck would have it, there is a 7/11 within a 2 block walk from my hotel. I found my usual 40 cent beer but upgraded tonight to the 70 cent beer. I walked over to the alcohol section and picked up a little bottle of unknown booze. I have seen it around town and I noticed a man with a bottle of it at the restaurant today. The price was right. $3 kuai! That translates to about the same as my 70 cent beer!

I thought to myself....hmmm, a savory snack would be nice. Hanging on the shelf next to the booze were bags of Japanese snack crackers. I found some with sticks wrapped in seaweed and one that looked like a flattened rice ball. Heading to the counter I made my purchase, much to the stares of the cashier.

Returning to my room I broke the seal on the booze and tore open the bag of flattened crackers, (I already know what the beer and seaweed wrapped sticks taste like). I poured a couple of tablespoons of my unknown alcohol in a cup and popped a cracker in my mouth. The cracker is oddly addictive. Sweet but edgy in a way. I was pretty excited so I grabbed the booze and took a big sip. O!M!G! They could hear me choke in Tokyo, I am sure of it. It hit the back of my throat and I would say burned all the way to China, but it went further that that!

I have had moonshine, this does not compare. The only thing I can think of (which I have not actually drank) is turpentine! I instantly probed my memory banks to make sure it was located with the booze and not the shoe polish. oh my hell! Then I began examining the crackers wondering if I had made more mistakes tonight. Now, the cracker has a mascot on the label named 'Yappy', and Yappy is a dog coming up out of his dog bowl. Is that good marketing? Or do you think I am snacking on dog biscuits? Maybe that is why I find them oddly addictive?

So, I am sitting here now, my throat burning like crazy and I suddenly feel as though I want to roll over and play dead. Maybe my little spurt of boredom and sudden late night adventure has turned out NOT to be prudent. I am wondering now if the man in the restaurant was drinking what was in the bottle or perhaps he was a furniture repair man and was there to revarnish the table top? hmmm?

So, I guess the moral to my story is: I should ask more questions. Either I go to sleep tonight in a semi-comatic state (the same kind you get from drinking rubbing alcohol) with a full tummy -or- I begin scratching myself and slip into a non-reversal mentally impaired state (kind of like dropping the blow-dryer in the bathtub). Whatever be the case, if there are no more blogs received from me - you will know it was the latter.

***oh, I also purchased liquid detergent sold by the powdered Tide at the little store. Friday at school I saw a chinese gal washing her chopsticks with it. Now I don't know if I have been washing my clothes with dish soap or washing my dishes with laundry soap! ****

*****and I also think I may bring this bottle home. It may be good to keep in the medicine chest to fight a skin infection or I may use it to poison those blasted ants we get in the summertime. Both seem like good uses, providing I live ******