More Drunk-Tank-Bashing

Have any of you drinkers ever read the warnings on the medications you take? It's okay if you don't take any medication, but for those of you who do, ever read the warnings?

Most of the time, it says, "Don't drink," in convoluted medical language.

Exactly how do you continue to drink then?

I know a fair number of people who take medications which expressly forbid them from drinking grapefruit juice, let alone alcohol. Yet they're out at the bar on Saturdays with the best of them. I guess it's like tobacco; it's really not a good idea, but we'll do it anyway.

So what advice would you drinking types give to those of us who, for medical reasons, can't drink? Get used to life as a human garbage bag, I imagine, either that or ignore the warnings and come drinking. Because there are a lot of things which don't play well with alcohol, a lot of them. Sleeping medication is one, and yet we keep having those celebrity cases where someone took a sleeping pill after having downed a bottle of Jack, then drove their car through a plate-glass window. They weren't hurt, of course, and because the legal system seems to feel the way that you drinkers do (judges and lawyers are big drinkers, I'm given to understand by television, and why should I disbelieve it, because everyone in the world are big drinkers, according to some), they get to plead medical malpractice or some such crap. I am employing heavy amounts of sarcasm, hyperbole, and exaggeration here; do not correct me, for I do not care.

So by all means, people who shouldn't drink, go to it. It's the only way to be happy. It's the only way to have fun. Karen Ann Quinlan had a blast right up to the point that she became a fixture in the debate on pulling the plug on brain-dead coma patients. Nobody remembers that part, though. Everyone remembers that she was in a coma, but no one remembers that it was because she shouldn't have been drinking.

Sorry drinkers, I wish I could have as much fun as you have, but I can't. I'll just keep providing grist to the mill so people can call me either crazy or stupid, possibly both. But since my rather unorthodox stance on troop support came to light, I don't expect much of anything else.