Chicana on the Edge

Mentioning the unmentionable since 2004

Like loud noises and car exhaust
written by Regina Rodríguez-Martin
July 20, 2006

After seven months of under- and unemployment, I am FINALLY employed full-time. In fact, right now my restaurant is short-staffed, so I’m currently working seven shifts a week with one or two days of double-shifts each week and it’s feeling like quite a load. My sore feet are trying to adjust to the sudden windfall of work, but my bank account is finally functional. All the employees at this place are stretched pretty thin these days, but another group of new hires is on the way, so I hope in a few weeks to be working the full-time hours I want. (This is also why I’m not blogging much these days. Too busy!)

One thing I go through at each job, is establishing all over again that I don’t drink. Irritatingly, when I tell someone I don’t like the taste of alcohol they — almost without fail — offer me an alcoholic possiblity I might not have tried yet. I say, “I just don’t like the taste of alcohol” and they say, “I know a drink you’ll like. Have you ever tried XYZ?”

Why? Why do they offer these suggestions when the plain truth is that I just don’t like alcohol? Why is it so hard to believe that I HAVE tried every liquor, every alcohol, every mixed drink, every wine, every beer, every malted liquor beverage and I have no interest in testing any of them again? Why is it so hard to believe that I’m not on some lifelong search for the drink I’ll actually claim as my own? Why is it so hard to believe that not only do I not drink, but I have no interest in drinking, the experiment is run, I’m done, I’ve excused myself from the bar counter and I can conclusively say I have no interest in alcohol?

If I said, “I don’t like loud noises,” they wouldn’t say “Here, listen to my car alarm. Very few people don’t like how loud it is.” If I said, “I don’t like breathing auto exhaust” they wouldn’t say, “Well, you should lean over the tailpipe of the buses in Denver, Colorado. Their exhaust smells different from other petroleum-based emissions.” If I said, “I don’t like hot weather” they wouldn’t say, “Don’t say that until you’ve experienced high summer in Arizona. The temperatures go well over 100, but it’s a dry heat. No humidity at all. I’ll bet you wouldn’t mind that.”

What the hell?? When I say I don’t like alcohol it means I don’t like alcohol. Why do people keep trying to ply me with the exact substance I’ve just expressed a distaste for? I enjoy alcohol as much as I enjoy painfully loud noises. I enjoy alcohol as much as I enjoy inhaling urban exhaust fumes. I enjoy alcohol as much as I enjoy weather that’s so hot you can’t move, eat or sleep. MMMmmmm, alcohol.

Why don’t people believe me?

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