Some call me…. Satan?

            Last night I had occasion to wonder if I have developed some sort of persuasive power over others. Over the course of the last 15 years or so I have spent a lot of time drinking with friends most of them men. During this time a disturbing pattern of behavior emerges, whenever I am around someone who is drinking they seem to be pushed to drink far beyond their normal tolerance levels. I know I have pushed some of them into this behavior through verbal pressure but the primary motivator seems to be that my friends ave an insane desire to “stay even” with me when I drink. This is sheer folly.

            I am 6’1” tall and tip the scales at around 245 lbs (186 cm and 111 kg for the Eurofolk), a good bit of my ancestry is Irish, and I have a lot of practice drinking. This combination of factors has given me a near superhuman ability to tolerate levels of blood serum alcohol that would cripple an elephant. Trying to “stay even” with me is a losing proposition at best. This does not prevent people from making the attempt however.

            My buddy SGT Negrodamus and I have been drinking together nearly every weekend for a good long time now and he has always had a thing about trying to “stay even”. This came to a head last night when he took off on a massive tequila binge. Now I won’t even touch tequila. When he asked me why I wouldn’t join him in this exercise in self-abuse I told him, “Tequila just makes me vomit.” His response? “I never puke”. He should really learn to stop saying things like that. Much like Caiphus Cain they always come back to bite him in the ass. (I dread the day all his Semitic karma catches up to him). Many, many, many shots later he paid the price but for the sake of his already shredded dignity I will not relate the gory details.

            Did he stay even? Hell he passed me as I was in no mood to even contemplate such a liver-pounding endeavor. Hopefully I will never feel the need to do anything on that scale again. I would like to think I have outgrown it. Now I just need to figure out how to turn off my “Enabler” super-powers so my friends will live longer too.

            To all the buddies who have fallen into this trap with me before, (Dan, Jerry, John, the 4 Mikes, Jeff, Marc, Charlie, Quez, Ziggy et al...), my apologies.

P.S. I still wont be letting any of you choke me as revenge though so just forget about it!