Razor Blades & Drinking

Drinkingchart
I’ve always been a "Gillette Man", thinking their razors are far better and more effective than the Schick variety. This last Saturday would have been the perfect opportunity to test out my preference. Had I possessed one of each variety, I would have happily tested them on my wrists as I sat through eight hours of Traffic School.

My ass and head still ache from sitting on a hard chair for the day as I listened to a middle aged man fervently preach the saving graces of using windshield wipers when it rains. However, I did learn something intriguing.

You know that little chart that shows you how many drinks you can have in an hour or two hour or three hours before you are supposed to be legally drunk? Everyone has seen it. It’s a grid. In the column of boxes on the far left is your weight range, running across from each range is a series of different colored boxes (1 box for "OK", boxes for "impaired" and a different shade of boxes for "drunk". Inside each box is the number of drinks before hitting that level of impairment.) There is an example of one such chart in this post.

Well guess what I learned. When putting this chart together they define a "glass of wine" being 4 oz. AND being 12% alcohol or less.

I honestly don’t remember the last time I bought a bottle of wine that was dry AND 12% alcohol or less that wasn’t a German Riesling or a very sweet wine.

By my calculation and based on this chart, I can have 3/5 of a bottle of German Riesling over two hours before I’m officially drunk, at that point should not get behind a wheel of a car and, according to my not-funny "comedy driving school" instructor, have identified myself as a very bad person because I actually left my house in a car and with the intention of drinking—but that’s another story that came out of my 8 hours is a rock hard chair, listening to a middle aged, non-drinking man lecture that also lead me to think about the possibilty of testing the effectiveness of my favored brand of razor blades.

The point, of course is that if anyone actually does follow these informative government produced charts that tell us what can be drunk before we are in danger of being a danger is that you better skew them downward if your drink of choice is wine. Because chances are you aren’t drinking the kind of wine the government thinks you are.


6 Responses

  1. buntmarker - August 27, 2007

    hey tom
    don’t worry, man they know you are looking at the weight category about four boxes below your actual one so it all works out kinda like women’s dress sizes, or when your barber asks how much to leave on top, even though there ain’t much to start with

  2. WineBoy! - August 27, 2007

    Awesome! But, of course as a libertarian I don’t think much of what my or any other government tells me…. duck and cover.

  3. Anneliese - August 27, 2007

    Don’t drink sweet wine. Just gain ten pounds to move into the next category. 🙂

  4. el jefe - August 27, 2007

    Anneliese – I’m already in the bottom category – now what?
    Wait, I guess that makes me the designated driver… uh oh! 🙂

  5. Randy Hall - August 29, 2007

    Tom, this is a local tip. If you want a dry red wine (from Languedoc), you can pick up the Chateau Veronique at the Glen Ellen Market (only $11 the last time I checked) and 12.5% ABV.
    So now you can rejoice in following the government’s schedule of blood alcohol level.
    Just doing my part, mind you…
    –R

  6. Saint_Vini - August 29, 2007

    You do know you can do traffic school on-line now don’t you? You can sit on your porch with the laptop and have an entire bottle of 16.5% zinfandel during the 4 hours or so it takes to complete the course. There’s no sobriety check either!
    V


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