Flashback Friday: My Nightmare

When the Viper was just a little viper, Mama Viper used to bake cookies for the Winter Celebration Season. She'd make all kinds: sugar cookies, chocolate crinkles, angel thumbprints, and others of which I don't remember the names. She would pick one Saturday and bake them all, listening to Christmas music as she did so.

My mother loves Christmas and has perhaps the largest collection of holiday music known to man, from LPs  and cassettes to CDs, and eight-tracks too when those were around. When I was young, the family stereo had one of those cassette players with auto-reverse, which allowed an album to play continuously.

While my mother baked all those cookies, she tended to get stuck on one album and let it play and play and play on endless repeat. The album that seemed to get her cookie-baking groove on was Barbara Streisand's "A Christmas Album." And this is the song that put me over the edge ...



I have a distinct memory of waking up to this cocaine-induced, frantic, breathless spewing of "Jingle Bells," a wicked distortion of the classic holiday favorite. With the volume cranked to the right, the speakers would be blaring near their threshold, buzzing and thudding as if in pain.

Year after year this would happen. All my siblings and I now display a visible tick at the mere mention of Streisand, let alone this album. But this song, oh how I loathe it. And now, I share it with you.

Jolly Holidays, booze hounds! We'll catch you on the flip side, at least some time before the New Year dawns.

An extended Happy Hour is nearly upon us, teammates! Have a finely brewed weekend. Run well and drink well. Beware of the eggnog, for this batch may have too much brandy in it. Cheers!