December 14, 2007
We live in a post 9/11 era and will continue to do so barring the apocalypse or a patent on a time machine. Ne’er-do-well terrorists with frequent-flyer miles (entry into the mile-high club being forsaken in this life for an attractive consolation prize in the next) have caused security at airports to tighten like the circle of police officers around a public demonstration for the poor. Restrictions on liquids being brought on board airplanes mean that one can no longer stroll on board with booze, cologne, hair gel and all the other accouterments a gentleman needs to have on hand to be able to properly flirt with flight attendants once in the air.
In Nuremberg Germany, a man getting ready to board a plane to his hometown of Dresden on the final leg of a return trip from a holiday in Egypt was told that he would have to either pour out the two bottles of vodka he had in tow or pay a fee to have the bag containing them checked in with the rest of his luggage.
Now, vodka is the world’s most popular distilled beverage and apparently so entrenched in popular culture that the insane think it a viable Halloween costume (pictured here) and the bathtub version is said to be so strong that copious amounts of it consumed at an ashram luau are rumored to have once resulted in swami Sai Baba being struck temporarily blind in his third eye.
We enjoy vodka as much as that demonstrative bearded fellow at the corner pub who strikes the surface of the bar loudly when ordering up the next round. It’s been described as tasteless, as has our brand of humor, and that’s why we drink it to excess when there’s an oversupply of orange juice lying around that needs to be put to good use. But as much as we enjoy a glass of the hard stuff to toast victory and curse defeat, had we been in the German man’s position, we probably would have just paid the bloody fine.
The man in question chose instead to unscrew the cap and chug the entire two pints worth right there. Now, as we’ve noted in The Man Who Scared a Shark to Death, that kind of vodka consumption is not recommended, although to be fair the downing of one litre of the stuff did, according to medical officials, limber up a Russian gentleman and help him survive a 40-foot fall from his balcony after a misstep while he was out enjoying some much needed fresh air to go along with the equivalent of the 22 ½ shots he had just downed.
The German vodka-lover in this case quickly lost the ability to walk or do much else as the alcohol ran hell over his innards. Acute alcohol poisoning nearly killed the man, however he was taken for treatment to a hospital in Nuremberg where he was expected to make a full recovery and no doubt be stuck with a hellish hangover that will serve as a more than adequate reminder to shove his booze into his suitcase next time.
