In Boozo Veritas #42 by Teege Braune

Move It Or Booze It

A fresh start, new digs, a clean slate, a hook to hang your hat on. Home is where the heart is, and sometimes a person comes to that time in her life, for any myriad of reasons, in which it becomes necessary or advantageous to pack up everything she owns, carry it to another place, and unpack it all over again. A new hearth can be a beautiful thing, but getting there is often a tedious, overwhelming endeavor. In short, moving sucks. I’m remembering this all too clearly as Jenn and I are in the process of doing this very thing as I type these words. In fact, I’m only pulling this moving train into blog station because John King has sworn sweet revenge on your troubled hero if I turn in another In Boozo Veritas past my designated deadline. Never fear, eager reader, for In Boozo Veritas must be completed at all costs, its weekly publication being the most important force in the current cultural zeitgeist. I shall turn the tables on John, though, when I ask him to help me move in the next couple of days. Jerry Seinfeld has famously said of moving: “That’s a big step in a male relationship. The biggest. That’s like going all the way.” Is John ready to take this intimate leap with his star blogger? We all await his answer in rapt anticipation.

I couldn’t be more excited to be moving with my lady love from our tiny, bohemian apartment in Winter Park to a tiny, bohemian house in the Milk District, but in the meantime, Jenn and I have an immense amount of packing that we have naturally put off to the last minute. Fortunately, we have a secret ingredient to make the time pass easier: I speak, of course, of alcohol. There’s no unpleasant situation that isn’t improved by a case of beer or bottle of bourbon and even the god-awful act of moving is no exception. I recommend making a drinking game out of it. Take one drink every time you get distracted reading old Christmas cards. Take another drink every time you try on every article of clothing you haven’t worn in several years. Have a third drink every time you jump on Facebook to see if anyone has commented on that picture of your cats dressed in sailor suits. Take a drink every time you’ve wasted more than an hour sitting around drinking. Before the end of the night wading through your own besotted mind will seem less possible than Moses parting the Red Sea as he and his fellow Israelites endured their own legendary move from Egypt to the Promised Land.

On second thought, maybe drinking heavily is not the best way to get from point A to point B, but what can I say? Procrastination has always been my modus operandi. Sheer panic is a hell of a stimulant. Never do I feel more fueled than when I’ve put off a daunting task past the last reasonable moment, and yet how many sleepless nights have found me typing till dawn, guzzling coffee at one in the morning, crawling to work the next day with red eyes and weary, burdened mind. Still, procrastination got me through college and we all know how much those four years resemble the real world outside of the halls of matriculation. Along with moving I also have to finish my piece about Donald Duck for the taping of next week’s Drunken Odyssey roundtable celebrating the 80th birthday of the world’s most beloved, emotionally-impaired, waterfowl. Plus, I have bartending, teaching, and of course, that weekly chimera, In Boozo Veritas. But you will be happy to know that I’ve already finished my story for There Will be Words Halloween Flash Fiction Spooktacular. In the end, we all must have our priorities.

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Teege Braune (episode 72, episode 75, episode 77, episode 90) is a writer of literary fiction, horror, essays, and poetry. Recently he has discovered the joys of drinking responsibly. He may or may not be a werewolf.