Say no to eggnog

This week, I’d like to take the chance to talk to you about a very addictive (and, therefore, very dangerous) Christmas treat that has taken me in with its seductive siren song and has, just as quickly, chewed me up and spit me out.

It has left me a pathetic junky, a mere shell of my former self.

This blight on our society of which I speak is the insidiously delectable holiday beverage known as “eggnog.”

When I was growing up, I enjoyed eggnog as much as the next kid, but was never overly enthusiastic about the stuff. I drank it because my family told me that drinking eggnog at Christmas was what good respectable people did.

Later, in my early 20s, I developed an aversion to the creamy yellow stuff. I couldn’t understand why so many people were so crazy about it.

I mean, what the fuck is “nog” anyway? Even as I write this, my computer keeps underlining it in red, because it’s not a real word!

At least the French have the decency to call it something that makes a little more sense: lait de poule, or, roughly translated, chicken milk.

It all seemed like a huge waste of rum, but I figured that unless we go into war and have to start rationing our rum supplies, people could waste rum any way they wanted to.

Based on my developed distaste for the nog, I decided to lay off of it completely. For the better part of a decade, I didn’t touch the stuff.

Then, this past month, I decided to give it another try. I figured that maybe my tastes would have changed, and I might let the nog back into my life.

I was certainly unprepared for what happened: I became completely and hopelessly addicted to eggnog. I’m talking like six litres a day.

I’m not mad that that the eggnog industry has decided to boost sales by adding crack cocaine to their product. I’m addicted to lots of things, like breathing, drinking coffee and eating discarded cigarette butts.

The thing that really pisses me off about my new addiction is that every Jan. 1, for the rest of my life, I’ll have to quit eggnog cold turkey because the sons of hoo-ers who make it have decided that they want me to suffer horribly and go through an 11-month period of withdrawal (just enough time to almost kick a nog addiction) before their product once again rips off my head with its rich creamy goodness and takes a subtle and seductively spiced shit down the hole that used to by my throat – figuratively speaking, of course.

I think the evil heads of the big eggnog companies should do us all a favour and sell their wares all year long, or take it off the shelves completely.

If they don’t, I’ve got a good mind to write a nasty letter.

Perhaps the worst thing about nog withdrawal is the initial eggnog-flavoured vomit.

Published in Volume 65, Number 15 of The Uniter (January 13, 2011)

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