It was a few years ago, when I was just a early 20-something with a bucket of dreams and an affection for the hours of 5-8pm, where drinks were half off. Not that I was a blossoming alcoholic, but when you make $700 a week working on a gameshow in NYC, a girl can’t afford to pay full price for anything. One of the girls I worked with still lived on Long Island with her parents (like I said…we made $700 a week, so being able to live at home was actually pretty fucking awesome. Paying $1,500 a month in rent to live in a studio the size of a jail cell was not fucking awesome), and she invited a few people from work to spend St. Patrick’s Day bar-hopping on Long Island, then have a good old-fashioned sleepover.

I met my friend, Mallory, at Penn Station to house some Taco Bell before we caught on our ride on the Long Island Rail Road (as you do, in Penn Station). Being the diligent, someone-should-always-know-where-I-am-in-case-I-get-brutally-murdered gal I am, I emailed my dad in-between $1.50 tacos to let him know where I was going. He replied immediately with the following – and this is a direct quote:

“Help your father out, please? Do I have to worry about your frequent comments about drinking, getting drunk, and alcoholism? You know, alcoholism does run in [my] side of the family!”

Now, maybe the old man was concerned about my well being, but this has to be the lamest intervention EVER. Although I would like to state for the record that you haven’t seen peer-pressure until you’re at my parents house at 5pm and you don’t have a G&T in your hand. Or at least one of those Milwaukee microbrews my mom bought “just for you.” My question, however, is this: just how concerned must you be that your favorite daughter is on a hard-and-fast downward spiral that you’re like “ehh, I guess I’ll shoot her a quick email and remind her of our family’s alleged rampant alcohol abuse.” I’d guess marginally less concerned than you’d be if you were compelled to send, I don’t know, maybe a text saying “Alcoholism runs in the family. Be careful and lmk if you need rehab or whatever.”

Listen, I already have a dollop of the Youngest Child Syndrome, so to me, that email was just a challenge to garner as much as my father’s attention as possible. What would I have to have done to warrant an actual phone call? (I’m not even going to wonder what action would prompt an actual face-to-face. After all, he lived in Wisconsin, so that would just be silly). Maybe a Tweet of me, face down in vomit? An Instagram selfie of me and the cop who’s hauling me off for public intoxication?

In the long run, I settled on doing nothing because I’m still too much of a goody two-shoes to actually willingly illicit anger from my parents. Plus, once I got to Long Island, the bartender wouldn’t even serve me. I showed him my Wisconsin State ID, and he laughed, saying it had to be fake “because no one is from Wisconsin.” Oh, but people DO live in Wisconsin, kind sir with leprechaun suspenders on! Besides, um, me, there is  one man who lives there, who would have really fucking enjoyed your karmic refusal to serve. But for the record, my friend snuck me beers all night, so Me: 1, Dad: 0.