<p>Oh, dear, no one here… just when I needed the companionship. If I clank my glass, will one of you snoozing in a corner booth wake up?</p>
<p>Suffering from the one-glass-of-wine-leads-to-headache-leads-to-wide-awake-can’t-sleep syndrome… So what the heck am I doing in a bar? I’ll have a hot chocolate, spike it with whatever you think might help.</p>
<p>I’m here, I’m here, I’m just nodding out over my spiked coffee. I’ve got a “Coffee bothers my ulcer but when I stop drinking it I get headaches” headache, myself. </p>
<p>Put a little mint schnapps into that hot chocolate, the fragrance will zing you at least.</p>
<p>OK, the propping-open toothpicks just dropped off my eyelids which snapped closed just as I stuck my elbow into the glass of Scotch next to me, so I think I need to curl up in a shawl over there in the padded booth.</p>
<p>Booth, I said. Not cell, booth. Thank you very much.</p>
<p>Happy to see you over here as well as on the curly hair on boys thread. Bartender must have gone home, so I’m heating up the hot chocolate myself.</p>
<p>Only problem with hanging out in Sinners Alley in my current condition is I’m fresh out of clever conversation.</p>
<p>mootmom, you have to wean off S-L-O-W-L-Y. Start mixing minute amounts of decaf into your brew. Up the % over a few weeks till it’s all decaf. Then go off coffee altogether if the decaf bothers you. The caffeine withdrawal is a bear.</p>
<p>This is such a COMPANIONABLE bar. If I didn’t think it would embarrass all of you clearly clever patrons I could gush about how fond I am…I mean where else in the cyberworld can you check in looking for a friend at 2:30 am and have several buddies lift their heads off the bar to respond…</p>
<p>About the coffee thing: I have had to cut back because of blood pressure and have slowly gotten (took about a week of gradually pouring in less and less into the cup) myself down to half a cup with lots of cream and water to dilute it (like a MAJOR Au Lait…) I still get the coffee taste and a bit of a buzz…but my heart doesn’t race and if I miss a day or two there are no headaches.</p>
<p>I had to switch off coffee in my 20’s due to headaches. I’ve been drinking tea ever since. Imagine my elation when tea got put on the list of things that are good for you! It can be kind of annoying when you are in the hinterland and can only find Lipton, but hey, with lots of milk even Lipton tastes good. And a cup of Lapsang Souchong is so evocative it’s almost like alcohol.</p>
<p>Perhaps if they ever reinstitute Prohibition Sinner’s Alley can become a shady tearoom, where one is never quite sure just what’s in those large cannisters in the back.</p>
<p>Remember that pamphlet the US government put out in the sixties called something like “Drug-Related Slang: a Guide for Law Enforcement Agents”? I picked up a copy in my 6th-grade classroom. It claimed that “marihuana” smokers referred to sun glasses as “Tea shades”.</p>
<p>Shhh! I’ve been spying on other threads…Marite’s back in town, yeah. Digmedia’s leaving, boo. </p>
<p>And did you know, Sinner’s Alley is mentioned quite often and…well, we don’t have the best reputation…everyone thinks we’re alcohalics…and kind of wild and disreputable. </p>
<p>I could find this type of slanderous gossip terribly offensive - me being nearly a teetotaler and all ( or at the very least, an incredibly “cheap drunk” as in few drinks not dollar vino)- but what offends me the most is that the thread about colleges training Christian leaders has almost as many pages of comments as this thread.</p>
<p>I’ve got it! What we need to do is co-opt the enemy and start an interior thread about colleges training Christian leaders to be cheap drunks.That’ll bring them in for sure.</p>
<p>At least they have air conditioning in Vegas, baby. Here in Maine, we don’t “need” AC. Hmmph. It’s 90+ degrees, humider than Hades… I think I’ll go to Vegas and sit in front of the one-armed bandit where it’s cool.</p>
<p>Because what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas it does not make sense to ask about your trip. I can’t believe that you just drove oiff when I goto out of the car for a potty break… </p>
<p>The stories we could tell you about hitching a ride back to the alley. Curm, could ya crank up the air a little?</p>
<p>Thanks sybbie, I guess it is warm in here after all. I knew I was sweating but I was too caught up in jmmom’s philander comment to notice why.;)</p>