Nattyvana: That drunk-and-stupid state of mind one reaches after consuming a 12 pack or more of Jerry’s favorite Anheuser-Busch product- Natural Lite.

Never mind that Natty is only 4.2% alcohol. Never mind, but I can only imagine that horse piss has more flavor.  It is a “value priced” beer after all.  It takes persistence, but if you drink enough of it, you can get shitfaced.   Personally if my aim were to get shitfaced, I’d go for something with a lot more punch, like Jägermeister (35%- 70 proof)- if you can get past the fact it tastes just like Formula 44-  or just plain straight vodka (Stolichnaya is 40% or 80 proof.) 

To me drinking beer to get drunk is like driving through the ghetto to get to work.  You’ll get there eventually, but it takes longer, smells worse, and carries a higher element of danger than taking the freeway.  I don’t like the taste of beer anyway.  Natty isn’t the worst beer out there (take it from someone who used to party with people who drank Schaefer Light) but it’s pretty nasty even for beer.   It’s chock full of all-natural formaldehyde, with a wispy aroma vaguely reminscent of onion-tainted sweat socks and a despondent resignation to a life of obscurity and ignominy.  Whether or not Natural Lite is derived from anything “natural” I don’t know.  I do know that “all-natural” does not always mean “beneficial” or “healthy.”

All-Natural Ways to Die (for instance)

*Arsenic is an all-natural heavy-metal poison. (not to be confused with the 80’s heavy-metal band, Poison, though I can cite far better examples of that music genre)

*Ebola is an all-natural deadly virus.

*Black Mamba venom is an all-natural venomous poison.

*You can be eaten by an all-natural shark, should you choose to go into the water.

*You can be mauled and partially devoured by an all-natural grizzly bear.

*You can fall off of an all-natural cliff, or asphyxiate on all-natural bat guano fumes in an all-natural bat cave.

If you’re a possum, you can have the (mostly) all-natural Lilo the GSD/Chow mix snap your neck for you.

I’m glad I don’t get drunk anymore, if only because I have to be somewhat aware and sane to handle stuff like this.  The dogs do occasionally bring home some rather grisly finds. 

I really do feel sorry for the woodland creatures who dare to venture into our back yard.  This I think is probably Possum #4 for Lilo.  Her possum kill rate is rather surprising given that Lilo is 1. crosseyed, 2. bow-legged, and 3. slow.  Yet Lilo (unlike most dogs) is primarily an ambush hunter.  She lies in wait and then springs on her prey when they are unaware.  Clara and Sheena hunt like regular dogs- flushing and chasing.  Perhaps Lilo has had success with possums because they too are slow and low to the ground and can’t see that well.  I still feel sorry for the critters, though.

This poor unfortunate beast was immobile but still appeared to be breathing when Lilo deposited it in front of the kitchen door.  Jerry assumed that it was simply “playing possum” and acting dead so he scooped it up and put it back outside.  Sadly I found it the following morning, deader than a doornail.  Apparently it wasn’t just an act, or it was too badly injured to recover.  I tried to tell Jerry that I thought Lilo had snapped its neck, but hope springs eternal.  I was hoping she hadn’t mortally wounded it. If it did wake up I wanted it to be outside in its natural habitat, so if it were just stunned or playing possum it wouldn’t be waking up out in the foyer.  That’s all I need, some wild critter staring up at me with a mouthful (possums have 50 teeth- 8 more than dogs- which is a scary thought) of razor sharp teeth snarling at me as I’m trying to let the dogs out for their morning constitutional.

I very seldom drink anyway, and when I do, I drink wine, because I like the taste of wine.  Just a small glass will take me on a trip to mellow town. I don’t need to get shitfaced on it.  The last time I was truly shitfaced was almost 20 years ago, and I have no desire to wake up submerged in freezing water in a motel room bathtub with a half-eaten Domino’s pizza sitting on the ledge. 

It’s good that my health pretty much forbids me from doing much drinking.  I’m on enough blood pressure meds to kill most people outright, so I usually fall asleep before I can really start pounding ’em.  When I did drink to excess, back in the day, I was a forget-it-all drunk.  All I remember about one drinking party I went to in college was that yes- I did finish the whole fifth of MD 20/20, but I couldn’t remember whether or not I had slept with one of my friends’ skanky, geeky twin brother.  Nobody would enlighten me as to whether or not he had gotten lucky either- not until after I knew the coast was clear.  Since I had given up hope and let my birth control pill script run out, I had a rather harrowing two weeks of “waiting for Aunt Flo.”  Once everyone knew I was “safe”-then they told me what really happened- that he had passed out before I did, so I was never even subjected to the possibility of actually contributing to passing on that particular freakazoid’s genes.  Thanks, guys.  But at least they didn’t leave me passed out with my drawers down and my butt hanging out of the bathtub like what happened to one of my other friends.  When you weigh over 300# it is never a good thing to pass out on the toilet, especially if that’s the only toilet in the house.  Just saying.

It’s a lot safer to observe and let everyone else get drunk and stupid.  If only there had been such a thing as YouTube in the mid-80’s.  It’s probably a good thing that we were too poor for video cameras back then.