Bona Fide Boozer

The word bona fide reminds me of Penny Wharvey McGill's rant in Oh Brother, Where Art Thou? “Vernon here's got a job. Vernon's got prospects. He's bona fide. What are you?”

Bona fide alcoholic - what exactly does that mean? With the help of dictionary.com, let’s translate this literally (and figuratively):

• Authentic; resulting from alcohol (You are either a bottle of Grey Goose, or you are the legitimate spawn of Jack Daniels).
• Characterized by good faith and lack of fraud or deceit; suffering from alcoholism (You are the preacher who really keeps a cold glass of vodka behind the pew to get through his sermon, or you are the elder who has never lied about the fact that you skip church to worship your bartender).
• Antique; a person who drinks alcoholic substances habitually and to excess (Shouldn’t that be ‘to excess, habitually?’ I drink habitually, but rarely to abundant excess. I digress. You are the Andy Cap-esque octogenarian at the pub after midnight, or you’re a kouros memorialized in marble following a raging battle of flip-cup and strip poker).
• Valid under or in compliance with the law; an insatiable craving for alcoholic beverages (You’re legally over the limit, aka screwed if you’re operating a vehicle in DC, or you’re a dipsomaniacal police officer).
• Not counterfeit or copied; containing or preserved in alcohol (You are the guy who shouts ‘I can drink you under the table’ in the evening and does, then has a fowl stench of alcohol streaming from his pores at work the next day, or you are Walt Disney’s cryogenic remains).

Despite the frequent presence of wine in my midst (or crown and diets, or vodka tonics, or chocolate martinis, or Canadian beer…), I guarantee I’m not bona fide; at least, not where tasty spirits are concerned. I’m just a girl who likes to have a drink sometimes, but certainly not a bona fide Girl with Drink. That can only ever be an aspiration...

Until Alk. U. hands me my degree, I remain, comfortably, the Ulysses Everett McGill of the bar scene.


**Early post brought to you courtesy of Wednesday's business trip to B.F. Connecticut.