This weekend, my husband and I celebrated our fifteenth anniversary. We went out to a dinner, and he got some nice drinks, and I…
I have no alcohol tolerance. None. Zip. Zilch. I strongly suspect that I have the gene, common in people of Asian descent, that leads to “Asian flush” and alcohol intolerance; at least, I fit all the symptoms. Essentially, my body doesn’t produce one of the enzymes that metabolizes alcohol. (Incidentally, Antabuse, the drug that gives alcoholics a severe negative reaction to alcohol, basically functions by blocking that same enzyme, so it’s basically like I’m permanently on Antabuse). It’s so bad that any time people offer me kombucha as a nonalcoholic alternative, I have to explain to them that kombucha is only legally nonalcoholic, but it is not actually nonalcoholic, and I will get drunk on a quarter of a glass. (The same is true for nonalcoholic beer, by the way. And sometimes orange juice.)
When we first started dating, we would go to restaurants and I would basically have nothing I could get off the menu except tea and maybe sparkling water, and then I would get a sip of my husband’s drink, which is all I can tolerate.
But these days, restaurants have become extremely good at offering things that are actually nonalcoholic, and to my delight, the one we went to had glasses of BLÅ, a sparkling tea that is a mix of jasmine, chamomile, and citrus, on the menu.
It was delightful. The taste was crisp; the scent was lovely, and it had the feel of an aperitif without any of the (for me) accompanying digestive sadness. I love the idea of sparkling tea so much that I’ve been thinking about it ever since.
So this week saw another anniversary pass by: the anniversary of when my little red car was manufactured on December 10th. My car is now 32!
On Monday, the day before, though, I had an experience involving my car. To start, there are things you should know about my car. My car is 32: it functions basically the same way as it did on the day I got it in 2006. Which is to say, it has no heating or air conditioning, and getting it would involve doing things that are bad for the ozone layer, so I just deal with it. The other thing I will say about my car is this: it is not large, and it is not meant for anything other than roads, and that’s not a problem except that this means my car does not handle well in ice and snow.
It snowed on Monday. It was that kind of snow that fell when the temperature was right near the freezing/not-freezing line, and as anyone who knows snow knows, this is the worst temperature for snow, because this means that the chances of getting road ice go way up. I was in the gym with a friend when it happened, and realized when I came out that things were not looking good.
I started to drive home. About a third of the way there—after the third time my car slowly drifted a direction I had not chosen, while I was going 12 miles an hour, and while cars were shooting past me at 30 and 40 miles an hour—I realized that it was not safe for me to drive my car any longer.
Did I stop? No, because that’s not how humans are. I tried to bargain with myself. I went on to a side street where there were fewer people (and also, fewer cars had driven: this is important, because the road ice was in part formed by people driving on roads and then it freezing after the car passes). I managed to get another mile closer, until I had no choice but to get off the tiny side roads and onto a somewhat larger side road.
I spent about thirty yards on this one. I could tell my car wasn’t handling well, and—this is the key—it was not a rational decision I made at this point. Instead, it was like there was a voice in my head that said, with insistent clarity, “Park the car and walk home. Park the car and walk home. Park the car and walk home.” My subconscious had enough of me dithering. It knew the right answer, and it was not going to be ignored.
So I parked the car and walked home.
It was a beautiful walk, about two and a half miles on mostly quiet side streets. The sidewalks weren’t icy, so I was walking through crunchy snow. My jacket was warm. And the few times I saw other cars, I realized that I’d made the right choice.
I saw this poor person, whose car (better at snow and ice than mine) ended up getting stuck on a median. I saw people on curbs and in ditches at the side of the road. I saw a lot of flashing lights in the distance at one point, which I suspect was an accident. I saw a Cybertruck going 60.
My car is old. It is wonderful, but it is not perfect.
And I am grateful today for that voice of my subconscious, telling me that it was time to get out of the car and walk. I don’t know what would have happened if I hadn’t listened—I might have been okay.
But instead I got a nice walk.
Until next week!
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