That same week, NBC claimed alcohol, even in low doses – say, two beers – would age me so fast I’d piss my pants and slip into a coma before the broadcast ended.
The next morning, my wife said the newspaper reported red wine is the fountain of youth. Meet Giuseppe, a four-hundred-year-old Sicilian who plows through two bottles of Merlot each night. Sure, Giuseppe has nine ex-wives and can’t go to the bathroom without an ordained priest , but he’s alive.
What about Chinese elders who’ve been alive since the invention of underpants? Reputedly, all they consume is poultry and gallons of tea. That’s the big secret? I hate to break it to you, Southerners have been eating that way forever. Take my uncle: he drinks buckets of sweet tea and eats fried chicken every night of the week. His blood pressure is high enough to power a nail gun.
I suppose I don’t know why everyone’s trying to live so long anyway. What’s wrong with being dead? I was dead millions of years before I was alive, I didn’t even feel it. Perhaps my ninety-one-year-old uncle had a point. “You wanna know how to live forever?” He cracked open a Budweiser. “Love someone. That’s how.”
Well, that’s utterly ridiculous. But then, what would he know?
He still eats gluten.
1 comment
Mary C - July 15, 2017 7:45 pm
My Daddy was a heavy drinker. It scarred my brother and me for life. There are many of us who can’t be around those who drink alcohol because it tears those scars open.