17 August—Last Sunday, my son competed in the London T100 Triathlon semi-suicide race in the city’s recently gentrified Docklands. He flew from Bradley International Airport in Windsor Locks to London’s little City Airport on a succession of airplanes cobbled together by American Airlines. That’s because there’s no direct service from BDL (Bradley) to LCY (London City). And the biggest airplane LCY can handle is something like a Piper Twinkie.

One of the airlines cooperating with American for Paul Mordecai Jnr.’s trip was Aer Lingus, Ireland’s fairly recently privatized flag carrier. Due to the sizable hard case his bicycle—make that his bike—with hydraulic brakes and computerized shifter and digitized pedals travels in, it pays P-II to fly business class. And among the perks Aer Lingus and most airlines provide business-class passengers is free booze in minis or shooters—what Connecticut boozers call nips.

(I remember, back in the late 60s, when on at least a few flights between Heathrow and Idlewild [JFK], the stewardesses [flight attendants] on BOAC—since merged with BEA to form equally undistinguished British Airways—dispensed the booze out of fifths because there was an alleged shortage of minis.)

So my son, who like his father eschews booze, nevertheless took a couple of minis—little glass bottles rather than plastic ones American nips come in—of 92-proof Teeling Single Pot Still Whiskey for souvenirs. We’d never heard of Teeling and neither know nor care what single pot stills are.

Anyway, when P-II’s suitcase got to London City Airport a day after he did, he packed the Teeling minis and forgot about them. And last night, when P-II’s suitcase was delivered to Litchfield five days after he arrived, he kindly split the minimal contents of a Teeling mini with his father to celebrate the occasion.

Celebrate? The stuff was bloody awful. Even the less-than-an-ounce each of us experienced tasted terrible and burned our throats. Reminded me of the 80-proof Balvenie single malt whisky in a personalized bottle my first love brought over from Scotland when she and her husband visited 25 years ago. But worse. Much worse. Could it have been the single pot still?

And less than an hour after imbibing the fire water, I felt it. Less than an ounce—on an empty stomach, mind you—yet I felt faint, broke into a sweat, and had to lie down. It wasn’t a good feeling in any way. Happily, the hangover—if it was a hangover—passed in a few minutes. Why do people like that crap?

But my son’s bike is still in transit. He (thanks to his Apple Air Tags) and the airports in London, Dublin, Zurich, Edinburgh, Philadelphia, Chicago, New York, and Windsor Locks know where the delinquent bicycle has been and is. But the flaming assholes at American Airlines have absolutely no idea. More on that as it happens . . .