By Mims Cushing
mail@floridanewsline.com
If you’re ever feeling blue because you miss your far-away family, here’s something that can act as a pick-me-up. Choose a special word, add it to your email address list, and write down all the family members you want to text at the same time. So when you see that special word on your cell phone, it means something’s going on that everybody wants to know about, or perhaps they have a question for you. Last Saturday. I had a question for them.
Mims: “Hey guys, who can recommend a good vodka?” I have a friend coming over who prefers vodka, not wine, before we go out to dinner.
Jay (my son, the girls’ fun uncle): “That’s some kinda friend!”
Mims: “She’s been in Paris for months caring for her ailing brother. She just came back to Jacksonville for a week to check things out at her home.
Mims: (I expect my granddaughters to weigh in any minute. They do.) (Please know they have just heard about the stuff. They are still under the legal age for drinking.)
Mackenzie (the oldest, 20): “Gray Goose or Titos.”
Kallie (the middle one, 18): “Ketel One. It helps my stocks!” (Uncle Jay got her “into the market” for her birthday and bought her a few shares.)
Jay: “Right on, Kal!”
Dave, her father, signs on with the thumbs up Emoji.
Jay: “It’s all just rotting potatoes anyway.”
We are only going a few hundred yards away from my house to dinner in Sawgrass so we only have to drive a short mile to get home after dinner.
Melissa (my daughter, a trained EMT): “Vodka will diminish worries about her brother. Get Popov.”
Mims: “She’s bringing tonic. I like vodka and tonic.”
Schuyler (the youngest, 16): “Going wild, Grammie!”
Mackenzie (a junior in college who knows a thing or two about not driving under the influence): “Uber! No need to drink and drive!”
And on it went. I decided to get vodka at Publix. A wine seller stopped me in the middle of the wine section when I asked where the vodka was.
She said, “We only sell wine here. Where are you from?”
I thought that was rude. I told her I live nearby.
“Well, you can go to ABC Liquors in back.” I forgot that Publlx doesn’t sell hard liquor.
Over to ABC. When I was moving last year I probably raided their empty box stash to use for packing 20 times. It was about time I made a purchase. I went with Tito’s, half the price of the imported stuff.
Home I went with the bottle tucked under my arm, and then … more email drama. (Did you know the average person checks on his or her cell phone 74 times a day, according to The Wall Street Journal?)
Jay (Just back from the vet): “Brodie hurt his leg and has a cast on it.” (Brodie is his Wheaten Terrier)
Linda (Jay’s fiancee): “It’s a stylin’ blue. Fashionista!”
Schuyler: (the dog’s primo sitter): “OMG AWWW!!!”
Mackenzie: “OMG. He needs a wheelchair.”
Mims: “Can I send him my cane? Crutches? Walker?”
Kallie: “Aw… ”
Melissa: “Can I sign his cast?”
My friend comes over. We have a snifter of vodka and retire to Aqua Grill.I let her take the rest of the bottle home.
A day passes. Jay goes to the vet and returns.
Jay: “He bit his way through the cast in 24 hours! He’s way low Bro. Somebody is a really lousy patient. He got coned.”
Melissa: “OMG! Not the cone?? Maybe dip his leg in vodka?”
All things come back to vodka… I am sure Jay has vodka for Brodie’s leg.
We were done with the Vodka Summit. If you’re wondering how we ever get any work done with all this texting going on, so am I.
