Your Venomous Hostess has had a rough day. A rough, unprofitable day — a combination which is guaranteed to put me in the mood for a martini.
Did you know that during a bad economy, people will cut back on just about everything but lottery tickets and booze? In the Venomous Household, we call VH’s weekly lottery purchases his “dumb tax” since his piddly $5 winnings here and there don’t even compare to the 3.2% he’d (read: we‘d) have made had he invested the funds in our money market account instead of spending them.
Apparently, that irrational thinking behind lottery ticket purchases is shared by people who consider their incomes insufficient, whereas those who perceive themselves to be financially comfortable spend their money on other things.
Like booze. Evidently, when the economy gets tough, the tough go drinking.
If high-end European vodka is too expensive, you might try the stuff distilled in Wisconsin. If that’s too much, how about a beer? Don’t have enough for an import, try a domestic. If the bar tab is too much to handle, stop off at the store and bring a six-pack home.
Now, while Yours Venomously may have had a rough and unprofitable day, she still has standards. Ergo, she’s not yet willing to trade in her exquisite and repeatedly distilled high-end grape-based vodka for the swill they make locally, which makes The Venomous One’s martinis taste like petrol. So perhaps there’s something to be said in favor of the French since their vodka which tops that of the Russians as well as that distilled by the guy up the road here in Kansas.
Ergo, I have dispatched the Venomous Hubby to go forth and make martini goodness happen. Unfortunately, he just informed me that we’re out of vodka, a situation which only compounds my distress over such a rough, unprofitable day. He has, however, offered to run out and replenish my supply, an offer to which I gladly agreed even though I’m certain his real motive is purchasing yet another lottery ticket for tomorrow night’s Power Ball drawing. I’m fine with that, though. Really, I am, especially since I couldn’t make a decent martini if my life depended on it. And, as I believe I’ve made clear, I ain’t going without my martini tonight, dammit.
So this week’s Tippling Tuesday question is this: what discretionary spending item can you not live without?





