June 17, 2009

The compulsion continues. A few weeks ago, I wrote about how after becoming a father I began to see that adults everywhere are unable to prevent themselves from giving certain children or, in our case, a certain child, lollipops. Sometimes, these friendly, stick-bound candies turn up in the oddest places.

Many months ago, the Mrs., an avid consumer of household hints and tips, read somewhere about the process of making homemade vanilla extract. I’m not sure of all the details, but I know it involves a lot of liquor.

And a vanilla bean.  From what I can gather you let the raw bean bathe in a Ball jar full of vodka in a cabinet somewhere for half a year. If it doesn’t become vanilla extract, at least you’ll have a pleasant smelling way of igniting charcoal. 

Now that I’ve written about the vanilla making, I feel certain there must be more to the procedure but, really, such things are out of my domain.

We must have been running low because the Mrs. took it into her head to make some more of this concoction a few days ago. The vanilla bean she picked up at the local food co-op, one of those crunchy-hippie places that sell frozen flax seed pancakes and always smell like a blend of cardamom and patchouli. It’s a temple devoted to health and wholesome living. You can easily pick up a copy of Yoga Journal while waiting in line to pay for your carob bar with raisins and asparagus bits.

Given the co-op’s mission to promote health and vigor, they decline to deal much in cheap booze. For that, we had to shop elsewhere.

We live in what, in Kentucky, is called a moist county. No, it has nothing to do with the humidity.  Many counties in Kentucky are dry, meaning all alcohol sales are prohibited. Some are wet, meaning alcohol sales are permitted under normal legal limitations. We live in a county where alcohol can only be sold in restaurants of a certain size and whose main source of revenue is food sales. But, there is not a liquor store or straight-up bar within the county limits. 

The county just south of us is wet. Ten seconds south of the county line liquor stores start sprouting up like weeds after a week of rain. Coming home from visiting friends last weekend, we could see them up ahead, their garish yellow lights screaming “Last Chance! Last Chance!”

“I need to stop here,” the Mrs. said. “I need some vodka to make the vanilla.”

We pulled into the parking lot only to notice that acquiring what we needed would be so easy no one would even have to get out of the car. The store featured a disturbing innovation. It had a drive up window through which clerks were passing a steady stream of intoxicating brews to drivers.

We got in line. When it was our turn, the Mrs. rolled down her window and said, “I need the cheapest bottle of vodka you’ve got.”

“It’s for cooking,” she explained.

The clerk, bearded and bespectacled in a worn t-shirt that revealed a mess of less than elegant tattoos, mumbled about our options, which made it even more difficult to hear him over the racket created by all the metal in his facial piercings clanking together.

Somehow, the Mrs. selected her brand, and the clerk clomped off.

When he returned, he fixed his eyes on our two-year-old daughter strapped in her car seat in the back.

“Does that baby want a sucker?” he asked. His eyes sparked with excitement over the prospect of giving a child a lollipop.

“Uh, sure, she would love one,” the Mrs. said.

Leaning forward from the passenger seat, I asked a question that suddenly seemed pressing.

“Do you get a lot of children shopping here?”

No, the guy said, but sometimes parents bring children through the drive-up and he likes to be able to give them a treat.

Back at home I asked the Mrs. if it seemed odd to her that the liquor store would keep a stock of lollipops on hand.

“Well,” she said, “it keeps them coming back.”

“Yea,” I said, “just like alcoholism.”