All of the breath, and none of the buzz

When I was 7 or 8, Mom and Dad got a candy assortment for Christmas. It had cool stuff in it, like a small shallow bucket of hard licorice with a little hammer to smash pieces off, and some rock that I really enjoyed.

There were also some individually wrapped hard candies that tasted like liquor. There was a gin flavor, a bourbon flavor, a tequila flavor, and so forth.

I didn’t give it a lot of thought at the time (other than to offer my opinion that they tasted like medicine), but when I got older I considered what a stupid product it was. You’re going to smell like you’ve been hitting the sauce, but really be sober? “Hey Bob—what if we came up with a product that made you smell totally hammered, but you’d really be fine? That’s gold!”

I thought of those little hard liquor candies today when I read the sordid tale of Kevin Garn, Utah’s house majority leader, who says he once paid a woman $150,000 for her never to tell that he sat in a hot tub with her naked when she was 15.

Yeah. So.

She worked for him at a warehouse, and it was a spur-of-the-moment skinny-dip. (Wow, remember all the places you’ve worked where that was a common occurrence?) He’s bringing it up now because she’s talking to people about it; “part of the healing process” and what-not.

And oh, he says he never touched her. Quoting the story:

“We sat there, and that was it,” Garn said.
“Although we did not have any sexual contact, it was still clearly inappropriate — and it was my fault,” Garn said.

Damned right, buddy. And on the off-chance you’re telling the truth about that part, you’re an idiot, because nobody’s going to believe you. You get all the shame, and none of the memory—just like the liquor candy was all of the breath, and none of the buzz.

And don’t you love it when contrition coincides precisely with exposure?

All of the breath, and none of the buzz

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