Rum, Limes, and Small Wine Glasses

We are out of rum. But we have plenty of limes.

It’s usually the other way around. A big bottle of rum, always Flor de Cana, and just the smallest, most meager scrap of lime. The consequence of this resource imbalance is the use of lemons or oranges for a rum and Coke.

Truth be told, the citrus is irrelevant. It’s all about the rum. And enough Diet Coke to camouflage how much rum is actually in the glass.

Lately, well in the past three days, with all the public and somewhat feigned fervor about drinking less, being ‘sober-ish,’ I’ve reconsidered my rum consumption. It helps that we are out of rum. Did I say that already?

So, I’ve decided to drink wine for a while. Just a little., very measured, appropriate. To aid in this effort, I dusted off the small wine glass I got at the Erma Bombeck Writers’ Workshop I attended several years ago in very famous and picturesque Dayton, Ohio.

People pooh-pooh Erma Bombeck but they ought not. She was a kickass writer, amazing at the fast and pithy. And she was very funny. The Writers’ Workshop, sponsored by the University of Dayton, which is held just every two years, is packed with extremely funny people. People like SNL writers and stand-up comedians and more successful authors, essayists, and bloggers than you could cram into Madison Square Garden.

So, anyway. About the glass. It’s been on my bookshelf in my office for years. Yesterday, I decided to take it down, dust it off, and use it as my little January let’s not drink so much vessel. Plus, I have to get ready to revisit the Erma Bombeck Writers’ Workshop in April. We’re already planning the trip. I’m going to stay in the fancy conference hotel and my husband and our two sled dogs are staying in our van in the parking lot. I joke. I would never tolerate such disparity.

Here’s to 2024, small wine glasses, and funny people.