The hangover cure

THANK YOU for your get-well wishes. I’m happy to report that my tummy has ceased rumbling and I am well hydrated in accordance with your advice. I thought beer might help with the hydration, considering it’s mostly water, but then I remembered that the small amount of alcohol it contains is a diuretic, a fancy medical term for “makes you pee in the middle of the night.” And I figured you could only lose vital fluids that way. So I was very good and drank nothing but gallons of water.

I once had a journalist friend who used to fend off hangovers that way. No matter how inebriated he was when he arrived home at night, he forced himself to drink two glasses of plain water before he went to bed.

His theory was this: The human brain is surrounded by a liquid that protects it from shocks, but when too much alcohol enters the body it absorbs water from the tissues. One of the first places it attacks is the moat surrounding the brain.

Thus, on the morning after, you wake up with your brain stranded on the rocks. Every time you move your head, your poor grey matter is scraping against hard bone. It’s sheer agony. But if you drink enough water before retiring, the alcohol never gets around to attacking the brain fluid.

My friend said he got his facts from a pilot in the air force. I don’t know how correct any of this is, but it certainly does seem to work and it can’t do you much harm if it doesn’t. You’ll have to get up for a pee in the wee hours of the morning (presumably that’s why they’re called the wee hours) but it’s a small price to pay for avoiding a humdinger of a hangover.

Today’s Thought
A dusty thudding in his head made the scene before him beat like a pulse. His mouth had been used as a latrine by some small creature of the night and then as its mausoleum.
— Kingsley Amis, Lucky Jim

Boaters’ Rules of Thumb, #41
Shielding the compass. Wires supplying electricity to the compass light should be twisted around each other in a loose spiral. If you don’t do this, the direct current running through the wires creates magnetic fields that might affect the accuracy of the compass.

Tailpiece
“How did you get that flat tire?”
“Ran over a wine bottle.”
“Didn’t you see it?”
“Nah, the idiot had it hidden in his pocket.”