Posted on 11/27/2014 5:06:40 PM PST by SJackson
Wisconsinites will inevitably suffer from a miserable Thanksgiving weekend, thanks to intoxicated relatives.
Turns out Wisconsinites’ hopes for a happy Thanksgiving are no more than a pleasant post-Turkey dream, dreams which will soon be shattered by the horrible reality of “drunk uncles.”
Estately, which brought us rankings like “Which U.S. States Most Love the 1980s?” (note: Wisconsin ranks ninth) and “What if the Most Scottish States in America Formed an Independent Country?” came out with a new, festive ranking, outlining the states most and least likely to have a miserable Thanksgiving.
The site listed Wisconsin as fifth most likely for having a miserable Thanksgiving based on six criteria, whose data points were derived primarily from a mixture of government studies, Facebook data and election results.
The criteria are as follows:
1. Food poisoning likelihood, based on salmonella cases — Wisconsin ranks 33rd.
2. Likelihood of drunk relatives around the Thanksgiving table — Wisconsin ranks first (of course).
3. Likelihood of a political argument disrupting holiday festivities — Wisconsin ranks 10th.
4. Dietary restrictions, including diabetes and vegetarianism, which could impact the quality of Thanksgiving dinner — Wisconsin ranks 11th.
5. Likelihood of favorite NFL team losing a Thanksgiving game — Wisconsin ranks 12th.
6. Likelihood of guests skipping out early to start Black Friday shopping — Wisconsin ranks 27th.
For the record, Ohio, Iowa, Pennsylvania and Arizona ranked above Wisconsin. But if you plan on actually having an enjoyable Turkey Day in this state, think about excluding alcohol from the shopping list — or just exclude drunk relatives from the guest list — and enjoy your mashed potatoes and cranberries in sober solitude.
I'm not buying it.
Ping.
Thanksgiving without alcohol!? Who are these people? Communists?
What is up with West Virginia in this regard? When Utah beats you in the binge drinking department, you know that something is wrong.
It's hard to go identify specific binges when the poor bastards are pretty much drinking all the time anyways.
Yet it's #1 in salmonella from poultry. Good moonshine should kill that stuff. ;-)
One of my uncles by marriage finished his WWII service guarding German POWs, and what German profundities he hadn't already picked up as a child from old relatives on the (Iowa) farm, he completed courtesy of contact with the Kriegies. Anyway, when I was quite young, I would earn a small sip of beer if I would repeat a phrase from his lexicon of atrocious Germanisms. These many decades later, I only remember one word of the lot but can still recall how he and all the other uncles would roar at my performances.
Mr. niteowl77
*Having been around genuinely mean and dangerous drunks later in life, I remain grateful about how benign these men were during our holiday to-dos.
I have known some mean, dangerous and unpredictable drunks.
I hate those kind. After I get their measure, I avoid them, but sometimes you don’t see it until you get them in the right situation...such as a public setting.
Ugh. My dad was a drunk for the majority of his life, and kicked it in his last decade. But thankfully, he was not violent or disrespectful. He just got quietly drunk.
The only time my whole life that he ever displayed any outward manifestation in my eyes of unusual drunken behavior was when he overheard me (age 13) and one of my friends discussing a Playboy magazine and he slurred in a sarcastic monotone “You wouldn’t know what to do with one if you had it.”
I was so shocked my mouth must have dropped open. I had never heard my dad make any kind of comment like that, especially to me or one of my siblings. He was always all business to us when he was drunk, impossible to tell he was drunk.
I’d like to be the drunk uncle but no chance for nieces or nephews. Brother is gay, sister is too old and wife is an only.
I had a friend who shared a house with a fairly large guy, one of those guys who was a beast in high school football, bigger than everyone else, and pretty much had his way on the field with the opposition, from what my friend told me.
And the guy was congenial enough when you hung out with him and were viewed by him as his friend.
But when he drank, his personality could change from embarrassing big drunk guy to dark, mean, dangerous and unpredictable drunk.
And it could change on a dime, which, once I figured out something wasn’t right with him, made me damn nervous.
One night we were in a crowded nightclub, walking through the crowd, and he and another big guy banged shoulders as they passed. Happens a hundred times in those places.
They both swung around and looked at each other. The other guy looked at him in puzzlement, and the guy with us looked at him with a complete blank look, but there was something in his eyes that was very, very different, and not in a good way.
We watched this, holding our breath, when he clapped the other guy on the shoulder and grinningly said something like “Hey, want a beer?” or something inane like that.
We all exhaled. A few months later, we went to an Eric Clapton concert with a bunch of people in a pouring rainstorm, and had to leave in a damned hurry because this guy actually pissed on some people.
That was the last time I ever saw that guy.
So, yeah, I’m with you. You can definitely appreciate some good natured drunks if you have ever spent time around the other kind.
I know what you mean.
I must admit, I have known for some time that drinking heavily is something I have to approach with a degree of caution, but it isn’t that I get angry, argumentative, disruptive or destructive.
On the contrary, I am a good natured drunk (or so I have been told) but I do stupid things. No common sense.
So I don’t do that anymore unless I am in a fairly controlled environment with friends who I trust to look out for me, and that comes up once or twice a year...it’s fun.
But I had never been able to play that role for my nieces or nephews...I guess it just never came up like that!
I love to throw a ball. My son outgrew throwing the ball with the old man but I still love to do it. The “drunk” uncle is the guy who teaches you play poker, pitch a curve ball, throw a spiral and how to do a brake job.
I can do all that stuff.
Nice...:)
I am envisioning the “Uncle AppyPappy...can you teach me how to play poker?”
“Okay, kid...here is the first rule...”
:)
"Hoo-ahh!"
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