Rationalizations

I don't know anyone who could get through the day without two or three juicy rationalizations. They're more important than sex.

--- Michael (Jeff Goldblum's character), The Big Chill

Yesterday we had a big block party on our street. It was a fun, casual affair, with barbecuing and cole slaw and pie and kids playing on their skateboards and guys playing catch with the football. Some of the adults were drinking beer or wine, but it wasn't the type of party where people were throwing down and getting crazy drunk. Just harmless family fun.

Except for one neighbor I'll call Arnold.

At around 1:30 in the afternoon, Arnold goes back to his house and returns to the party with a bottle of brandy. He's polite, so he offers it around, but not surprisingly, no one takes him up on it, seeing as how it was the middle of the afternoon and all. And it was brandy.

I was curious about the choice of beverage, so I said, "that's an interesting selection for the middle of the day. Why brandy?"

"Oh, I just really like brandy. And it's a different kind of drinking. You don't pound huge quantities of it and get really shit-faced like with beer or something. You just sip it."

"Ah," I said. "Makes sense."

"And anyway, this is a small bottle. I usually buy the big bottle."

"Hmmm," I replied. I couldn't help noticing that this "small" bottle was easily a quart or so of liquor.

As the afternoon progressed, the brandy in this "small" bottle was getting lower and lower in the bottle until it was almost entirely gone. I wanted to explain to Arnold that while sipping may be all well and good, if you keep sipping and sipping until you've drunk a fifth of brandy, you're still going to be shit-faced. But by the time I got around to it, he was passed out on the street, surrounded by a bunch of small children who couldn't figure out why one of the grownups was taking a nap outside.