Tuesday, April 14, 2009

Dreams of the Green Fairy

Last summer, we had a birthday/house warming party at our abode. Our realtor kindly presented us with a bottle of Lucid Absinthe Supérieure as a gift. I placed the bottle on the top shelf behind the basement bar for future consumption and it remained there undisturbed until last week.

That's when our eldest son happened to notice the bottle, in particular the rather creepy green eyes. My wife explained to him that it was just a bottle and there was nothing to fear (at least until he gets much older and is actually able to drink absinthe). But when a child of that age gets fixated on something it's hard to get them to let go. Rather than risk further toddler terror or have to answer further questions, she took the bottle down and placed it underneath the bar, eyes facing away.

While celebrating Easter on Sunday I was behind the bar mixing up a few cocktails for guests. In the course of that activity I must have moved the bottle and turned it around. Because today when my wife had the kids in the basement, eldest son once again managed to make eye contact with the bottle's creepy peepers and was once again a bit freaked by their look.

So now the bottle of Lucid--which from I understand is a pretty high quality absinthe--has been relegated to the laundry room. Sharing shelf space with Tide, Woolite, and Bounce seems like an undeserved fate for a spirit of that reputation, but the warm blanket of childhood security should be preserved when possible. Besides I would hate for him to grow up with an unfounded fear of liquor bottles.

There are some very legitimate reasons to tread lightly with a bottle of absinthe. The menacing glow of green eyes is not one of them.

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