One Martini, Two Martini, Thud

OK so last night Mrs. Cris opens up one of the presents I got her. A little bar set for making cocktails. We have been hanging out with friends who are into cocktails, and while we are not much in the way of drinkers, it seems like a topic where we need a bit of schooling.

Oh, and Mrs. Cris swears the gift was really for me and not for her! The nerve!

So as soon as she was finished bitching about me getting her a gift meant for me, I opened the boxed set and pulled out the surprise ingredients I had been hiding for Appletinis. Now I was going by memory and I am terrible with numbers, so I couldn't remember if it was 2 ounces of Vodka to one ounce of Sour Pucker schnapps and one ounce of apple juice, OR 2 oz Vodka, 2 oz of Schnapps and one Apple Juice OR... well, you get the picture.

So there I am trying to figure out the secrete combination. The first drink was way too strong, says Mama Bear. So I down it and go back to the mixing counter. The second one, with equal parts of vodka, schnapps and apple juice seemed really good. And in hindsight I probably should have stopped there. But let me tell you a little story about men and they way they think:

When I was in college learning how to be an excellent educator and shaper of young minds (a career I have never actually worked)I was in a methods class, teaching you how to engage students to learn about Science. So the old Prof had batteries on a table, a long wire and a light bulb. He had us hold the wire from one battery post to another and then hold the flashlight bulb on the top of the connecting wire. EUREKA! We created a small flashlight.

Like little kids we played with the new toys (I was in my 30s at the time) and we were really enjoying ourselves when the old Prof instructed us to add a 2nd battery. You would have thought he had told us the secrete to cold fussion. Silently, with intent looks on our faces, more than a few of us biting the tip of our tongue in concentration, we held two batteries together, with the wire going from negative to positive and when we held the flashlight bulb to the tip the light was twice as bright!

It was the most amazing thing us non traditional, straight A, super nerds had ever seen! Now when the experiment started, somehow I was in a group of all guys. I don't know how this happened since in Education, about 90% of all participants are girls. I loved college! But in this case it was a table of us guys all marveling at the brighter bulb. And then, as if of one mind and body we all started working together to add extra hands and construct our very own SUPER FLASHLIGHT! We started with three batteries and then added a fourth and then.... the bulb blew out.

The old prof had been watching us the entire time, waiting for the inevitable. He laughed, making sure the rest of the class saw the group of stupid guys with dead bulbs. Then he told the class that regardless of the age, girls will sit around and discuss how cool the experiment worked, but boys will always try to take it to another level until they blow out the bulb.

Now with that in mind, it might be easier to understand why I went back and tried to recreate the second Appletini recipe. Did I mention I was not good with numbers? Was it 2V,2S and 1 juice? What the hell, let's just make it and see how it tastes!

And THAT is why I woke up with a headache on Christmas morning 2008. God Bless us, everyone.