Eggnog and the Fiscal Cliff

A Mother Nog Minding Her Egg

The other morning, Nancy opened the refrigerator, and seeing that I had bought eggnog, uttered an exclamation of delight and poured herself a glass.  For this reason I have hopes on the Fiscal Cliff.

Experts will tell you there are two types of people in the world: those who like eggnog and those who don't.  For the first twenty-five years of her life, and the first three years of our marriage, Nancy belonged to the second category.  I have always belonged to the first.

Why she didn't like eggnog, who can say?  Partly, not being an egg-fancier in the first place, she found it hard to get her head around the idea of drinking raw eggs.  Then there was the unidentifiable but menacing-sounding ingredient, nog.  But whatever the reason, Nancy had vowed that no eggnog should ever pass her lips.  But then, one holiday season, when the spirit of reckless abandon prevailed, she consented to drink a little.

And she liked it!

Then commenced a frenzy of eggnog consumption in the Martin household.  Nancy was making up for twenty-odd eggnog-less years, and I, delighted to have as it were, a partner in crime, an accomplice in eggnog-drinking, matched her mug for mug.  I'd buy an extra carton of eggnog on the way home and discover Nancy had already bought some too.  No problem, was Nancy's reaction, when it comes to eggnog, the more the merrier.  We discovered we liked Mayfield's eggnog the best, but we also drank Kroger generic in a pinch, and once some Borden eggnog that came in a can.  The last was a mistake, but we never looked back; the holidays were upon us and a whole world of eggnog lay before us.

We had eggnog with breakfast, lunch, and dinner.  We drove through McDonald's to get their seasonal eggnog milkshake.

The fever has since abated, and Nancy and I now enjoy eggnog in moderation, but those heady days of the great Eggnog Frenzy are still fresh in my mind.

Which is why I take heart seeing Obama and the Republicans wrangle over the Fiscal Cliff, seemingly unable to come to terms on anything, and just at the moment bipartisanship is most needed, there's just two versions of monopartisanship.  But people change, they're more capable of opening themselves up to alternatives than we give them credit for.

After all, Nancy didn't use to like eggnog.