Good one!! A +++
I was going over some material costs with my compadre earlier, and he said have you noticed that people-especially guys-in your community are acting weird-drinking more alcohol than usual, behaving inappropriately when they did not before, being overtly sexual, rude, etc? He said he had noticed it in his area-another small rural one, about 25 miles away and was somewhat concerned.
Now that he had mentioned it, I told him over the weekend I talked to two people, both men that I’ve known for some years, and I could smell alcohol on them before noon-one was cutting brush on his property and one was in the general store-both were getting toasted and had drinks in cups wrapped in foam sleeves. Then there was that coworker of mine acting weird, my neighbor up the road starting to come home late at night and his wife says she has no idea where he has been, but he is on foot and smells of liquor, etc. A married female neighbor is bragging about having an affair with a guy in the next county who is also married-I always thought of her as a prude-she drinks more wine and beer now, too...
My compadre said he is getting the weird treatment at home, the concrete contractor we work with is in a funk because his wife ran off with some guy after 30 years, and my compadre’s next door neighbor spends the weekend walking up and down the road half trashed, with a drink in hand.
We decided it is all the uncertainty of the economy and the rest-people don’t know if everything is going to go boom, and are either dulling themselves against it, or having a good time before it all ends-either that, or everyone has been looking at the full moon too much...