And yet the litter keeps showing up all the same.
Usually the stuff I see by the side of the road includes fast-food wrappers and cigarette butts. Sometimes there are soda cans, but more often beer cans, little airplane liquor bottles, and other open containers that would get you in trouble with the cops if they pulled you over.
So this surprised me.
I was walking Izzy early in the morning, and he was poking at something on the ground. I wasn't surprised to see it was a bottle, but was surprised to find it was a bottle of Ensure, the nutrition shake generally used by the elderly and other populations who have trouble getting adequate calories. We were on a stretch between houses, so it wasn't likely to have rolled out from someone's garbage. But who would pitch this out of the car?
Ultimately I decided it was an old drunk, a guy whose doctor told him he needed more nutrition and also needed to stop drinking vodka. Well, our drunken driving friend decided he would meet the doctor halfway, and mix vodka into the Ensure while tootling about, making a Poor Old Man's Black Russian. (I guess if he wanted a White Russian he'd use the vanilla.) Having consumed the cocktail, he pitched the vodka-scented bottle out the window and hid the remaining vodka for his next drink.
That's my story and I'm sticking to it. But if you're abiding out there, Dude, please remember, you're too old and weak to go to prison for killing someone driving drunk. You wouldn't like it a bit. Save your POM Black Russians for home. And please: Keep America Beautiful.
(NB: The bottle was not actually tested for vodka scent; I pitched it in the trash when I got back home, just in time for the garbage collection.)
When my mother was dying of throat/tongue cancer, she had to have a tracheotomy for a biopsy to determine the extent of the cancer's growth. This left her unable to eat via conventional means, so we had to administer nutrition via a tube in her nose that went all the way to her stomach. The doctor had us giving her Ensure. She was okay with the vanilla, but when we tried to give her chocolate, she threw it up. She never cared much for chocolate, but that showed the extent of her sensitivity to it. The Ensure wasn't enough to keep her nutrients up, so we had to switch to Enrich, which I believe was made by the same company but was a little harder to get because it was special. Either they no longer make it, or they consolidated the branding and call it Ensure Premium or something.
ReplyDeleteAnyway. To sum up, when I see Ensure, I think of it as something that you have to drink through your nose. Your little discovery there does not change my perception.
Vodka has no scent. Aside from every generic liquor's scent.
ReplyDeleteI must live in a good neighborhood, as there is ever hardly any trash. Much to the terrorists' dismay.
rbj13
When I was working full time and going to night school I tried Ensure type products to keep me from fainting. Gained to much weight between that and Cheeze its.
ReplyDeleteTried it also for sick ferrets but too much sugar and they can't process plant protein too well. They are better with the chicken puree I make for them.
FM -- sorry about your mother's suffering. I guess when you're in that bad a shape, they're desperate to get the calories into you. My dad was able to eat as his life came to a close, but very little; not sure if they recommended Ensure or the like. He liked chocolate milk and such, but it was impossible to get him to do anything he didn't want to do. If he was not the stubbornest man I've ever known, he's at least the stubbornest I ever knew was in contention for the title.
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