It’s Hard Being Sober Out Here in These Streets

Okay full disclosure, I’m not sober. I’m more like… a perpetually entry-level drinker who loses more and more tolerance with age and medication, while at the same time maintaining the flavor palette of a 16 year old girl. 

My bougie and sophisticated friends ordering wine: I’ll have the driest wine you have, so dry my tongue feels like a cat tongue. I want to pay a lot of money for it because its insanely high quality from the highest quality region. I want to taste the wood, the soil, and the sun sign of every one who touched the grapes. 

Me ordering wine: Yes, I’d like it to taste like melted-down candy. Like Juicy Juice with ice cubes. And if you could rim the cup with pop rocks that’d be great.

I like my liquor fruit flavored and served on a patio with chips and salsa or next to a pool, and that’s about the extent of it. 

Drinking is something I’ve begun to lose interest in more and more, and to be honest, I was never actually any good at it. 

When my mom picked me up from a bar on my 21st birthday, I was so drunk I threw up a whole plate of spaghetti noodles into the open vent of her PT Cruiser. 

Every time she ran the heat it was like driving inside a vomit-filled Olive Garden. She had to sell her car. 

I also just really hate feeling like crap the next day. I don’t have time for it, and no amount of McDonalds cokes and sausage egg McMuffins makes me feel 100% anymore. I don’t have the patience for a hangover. 

So, I’ve started to dabble in not drinking, but the embarrassing truth is, I’m not secure about the decision. 

I don’t know why I feel so embarrassed about this, or I’m so worried about making other people uncomfortable with my not drinking. My besties honestly don’t care, because they know I have the personality of the old guy from Up, but other people can be a little suspect. Listen people, I want you to drink whatever the hell you want, when you want, and we’re still totally going to have a good time, I pinky swear, the difference is, I won’t fall asleep early in the booth or throw up in your car.

The two times I tried to casually order a mocktail from the drink menu at a bougie local cocktail bar, the server all but gathered the king’s trumpets as he placed the damn glass on the table bellowing to the packed house, “YOUR MOCCCKTAAAAAIL, MA’AM.”

Bro. I just paid $12 for Juicey Juice, cold foam and a dried sugar orange wedge, how about some discretion. 

I have so much social anxiety about this, I actually lied to a bartender once and asked for a lime and soda, but to please keep it quiet because no one I’m with knows I’m pregnant yet.

I am not pregnant. I’m just deeply insecure.

Now listen, I want to be very, very clear. I enjoy alcohol. I am also not putting myself or my journey with this out here to be caught in some sort of gotcha moment when you see me out here living my best life with a drink in my hand, so you and John Quiñones can just take a seat. My ass will still be pool side with an umbrella drink, sipping a Michelob Ultra at a concert, or splitting a small pitcher of margaritas on date night. I’d just like the option of not drinking to be a little bit easier, both on the wallet and my ego.