Never Too Young To Start

Our 11-year-old patient left home with his 13-year-old cousin to go visit friends. When the mother’s boyfriend went to pick them up, he noticed they were not acting right. After asking a few questions, he learned they had been drinking tequila. The boyfriend took them home and put them to bed. Later, when the mother arrived home, she was unable to wake her son. So, she called the paramedics who brought him to the emergency department. He was unconscious, unresponsive and was found to have a blood alcohol level of 168, which is double the legal level for adult drivers in our state. He had to be admitted to the pediatric intensive care unit and watched carefully overnight.

Open Bar at Your Local Emergency Department

Paramedics brought in a very drunk 54-year-old lady at 11:00 PM. Her blood alcohol level was 302. Remember, in our state, a blood alcohol level of 80 will land you in jail for driving under the influence.

Our usual practice in these situations is to keep a close eye on the patient until she sobers enough to call for a ride or leave on her own. At 3:30 in the morning, she seemed to be getting worse rather than better. I guess we didn’t watch her as carefully as we should have because, when she tried to get up to walk, a vodka bottle fell onto the floor. Her repeat alcohol level was 450.

A Man Stands Up for His Constitutional Rights

A man was arrested for being drunk in public. The police brought him in to get cleared to go to custody. When I asked him if he had been drinking, he said, “I’ll have to take the fifth* on that.”

* Paraphrased from Wikipedia:

In the late nineteenth century, liquor was often sold in bottles which appeared to hold a quart but, in fact, contained 2, 3, or 4 fluid ounces less than a quart and were called “fifths” because they held about a fifth of a gallon. The fifth was the usual size of bottle for distilled beverages in the United States until 1980.

My daughter, McKenzie sent me this recipe and they are wonderful. They mixed up easily and looked great. They are rich and tasty, even though they are not so dark a chocolate because of using hot chocolate mix rather than cocoa powder.

Recipe By:

lovefromtheoven.com

Yield:

36

Ingredients:

1¼  cups butter, at room temperature
1 cup sugar
⅔ cup brown sugar
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
3¼ cups flour
4 packs hot chocolate mix (not sugar free)
1 teaspoon salt
1¼ teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 cup chocolate chips
1 cup Marshmallow Bits,  * See Notes

Directions:

1.  Heat oven to 350 degrees F.

2. Cream together butter and sugars until light and fluffy.

3. And eggs and vanilla. Blend well.

4. In a separate bowl, mix together dry ingredients, including hot chocolate mix.

5. Add dry ingredients a little at a time to wet ingredients.

6. Stir in chocolate chips and marshmallow bits.

7. Drop onto cookie sheets in 2 tablespoon balls.

8. Bake 10-12 minutes. Allow to cool for approximately five minutes before removing from cookie sheet.

Notes:

* Original recipe says you can use mini marshmallows. If you do, they will turn out completely different. The Bits keep their integrity whereas mini marshmallows melt and caramelize. Both have their appeal but they are not equivalent. Unfortunately, the Bits are harder to find. Nob Hill and Lucky, the two grocery stores closest to us don’t carry them but I was able to find them at Safeway.

I spent some time experimenting with square bottoms on some bags. they turned out OK but were a lot more work than my usual method.