Happy Holidays?

I went to a holiday party last night, so today I have a terrible headache. The kind you get when imbibing alcoholic beverages without rhyme or reason. Although it can be argued that, "all beverages were fermented from grapes" is a kind of genus, and "simply because I can" is a fairly good reason. However, chasing red wine with champagne, then following champagne with white wine, and finally, when clean glasses are no longer accessible, drinking some kind of Greek grappa from a used glass, is not what one would consider orderly drinking. But hey, that's what the holidays are all about, hence last years debacle with the pirate leg and the two black eyes (I'll save that story for another day).

The good news is I wasn't drunk enough to do or say anything incredibly inappropriate. And while my conversations tended to veer to the scatological, I assure you that's not atypical of any other day. Yes, I had the tendency to hug (a.k.a assault) unsuspecting party goers and erroneously make air quotes with my fingers, but this can be viewed as more charming than imbecilic.

And frankly, I should be commended for successfully suppressing my desires to french-kiss every male at the party. And really, the term Dirty Sanchez only came up once in conversation. Then why, Bacchus great god of disorderly drinking and orgies, have you punished me with this splitting headache?

Is it because at one point I squeezed my own breasts? Or is it because I accused the door man of letting someone steal my coat, only to realize I was looking for my black parka, when in fact I had worn my purple pea coat?

It's because I overdid it with the air quotes isn't it?

Yes I may have exhausted a lifetime of air quote usage in a single evening, but seriously, the air quote conveys a world of information via nuance, and sometimes, well, I like to be subtle. And you must understand, for we Americans, nuance is not something we fully understand how to accomplish. Look no further than US TV programming, nothing implicit there (except for those insipid and questionable exchanges on the Hills). So while we Americans may not understand when to use air quotes, we're still quite enthusiastic and prolific about it.

You see, here in the US of A, as I assume in most English speaking countries, we make our air quotes by forming a V with the index and middle fingers on each hand. Then we flex the fingers at the beginning and end of the phrase being "quoted." As such:

The Germans, on the other hand, sometimes comprise one hand inverted relative to the other in order to imitate the German-language quotation mark, which I believe looks like this:

And Le Fraunch also utilize the V-shape as a means to imitate guillemets, which look like this:

So you see, while the air quote differs in presentation from country to country, the use of satire in common parlance does not. And I'll wager that the abuse of air quotes by tipsy revelers is also not dissimilar across the globe. So please, Bacchus, enough with the headache. Bring me four Advil, and maybe just a nip of Glenlivet.