This was the last time I ever did something nice for someone... I received a gift, a gift from a business associate. The gift was a bottle of good Scotch, not a great Scotch of the single malt single barrel the water is from a pure glacial spring, the grain harvested from the sunny side of single windswept hill, fermented and distilled in our exclusive four hundred year old tanks and still variety, but a good blended Scotch nonetheless. It was a nice gesture by the business associate the only problem being that I really do not enjoy drinking Scotch. I have tried to make myself like it, to feign the sophistication required to truly enjoy a good Scotch neat or with a splash of water to open it up and allow its full flowering. It is just not my cup of tea or glass of spirit for that matter. I prefer beer, occasionally expensive beer, even cheap beer, I sometimes enjoy a glass of wine, I used to drink a lot of beer both cheap and expensive and a good quantity of wine for that matter, but I really have never cared for Scotch even during that period of general excess. Sue me. Since I do not enjoy the aqua vitae, I decided I would pass it along to a co-worker who had previously expounded nostalgic and poetic about the finery of a good glass of Scotch with a splash of water to open it up and allow for full flowering. I figured I would spread some holiday cheer about the room. I figured it was a nice thing to do. I figured I am not going to drink it, my wife is not going to drink it and we do not entertain often enough to justify having a bottle of Scotch in the house, so I gave the co-worker the bottle of Scotch in its fancy wooden box bound in fine silk cord. Apparently, I figured incorrectly because later, expecting a thank you, a handshake maybe as he walked by my desk, instead began the litany... Thanks for the Scotch... What...did you give up drinking? I have heard rumors that you gave up drinking. Did management have a discussion with you? Did you quit of your own accord? What happened? Are the rumors true? I tried to rescue myself...Well...I never stopped drinking. I enjoy having an occasional belt. I just don't really care for Scotch. Oh...so you still drink you just don't drink like you used to you know to the point of falling down and making general folly of yourself. Yeah I guess. Well...that's good. I suppose so. That was the last time I did something nice for someone because my kindness was used as a crude screwdriver to jimmy into my private life. That was the last time I did something nice for someone because my kindness will be used against me in the court of public official opinion. That was the last time I will ever do something nice for someone so don't blame me if during a public or private interaction with me, I am a thoughtless, rude, rotten fucken bastard. You can blame it on a bottle of Scotch. I am. And the next time I do get a bottle of Scotch from a business associate for the holidays, I will keep it, never drink it, leave it and any future bottles of Scotch I receive in a high dusty cabinet, until they are a hundred fucking years old and my children can auction them off to hire someone to feed me my morning oatmeal and change my god damned diapers.