Health

I had to visit a physician a couple months ago, and his advice for me was to drink a glass of wine, or beer, or a shot of whiskey, anything every day. Just one!

This may startle some friends, but I decided to take his advice. I've been on the wagon since early 1991, not a drop to drink, and didn't miss it. Follow doctor's orders, they say. My first purchase was a medium expensive jug of merlot, a standard fifth, I think it is. I began looking around for bargains, since there is only four glasses in a bottle. The next one I picked up at the grocery store, in fact, this time I procured three more bottles so I wouldn't have to be trotting to the liquor store so often. Two bottles of merlot, one French, and a cabernet sauvignon for what I thought was a reasonble price, about five or six dollars each. I said, as I drank my daily glass, that that was the end of the foreign stuff. I've never been a great reader of labels, but the time I spent in France showed me there was better wines than that somewhere.

Everybody says a glass of red wine is the best for you, so I'm sticking to merlot for now. Being a cheapskate, I started reading ads and checking sales and bought three more different labels, two of them cost about five bucks and one a little above two bucks. The two-dollar priced tasted about as good as the others, so the next time, and last for now, I purchased ten bottles for less than two dollars each of that label for Christmas and New Year's festivities, thinking I might have a relative or two paying a visit. And on top of that, I still have one large bottle of something I never heard of before waiting to be consumed. I don't how many glasses that contains, maybe six or eight, but the price was right. I should probably drink that next, I don't know how long cheap wine will hold it's flavor.

Along the way, there was a bottle of shiraz from Australia mixed in, which I thought was not quite to my taste as much as the merlot, but it will suffice if I have a bottle mixed up in there.

They say confession is good for the soul, but I don't believe there is any absolution necessary for a sin that is practically prescribed by the doctor, if it is a sin. How could something that makes you feel good and doesn't leave a hangover be a mortal sin? That's for the religious ones to decide, for now I'll just drink and enjoy.