My name is Ethel Flamerod, and I'm....

... a JellOholic.

There, I said it.

I can't believe it's come to this. Most of my life, I needed alcohol like a lokh in kop. I had my first taste of hard liquor on my eighteenth birthday. I was served drinks in teensy little glasses called shots. I thought they were like cocktail noshes, little snippets of flavor without a lot of substance. I figured it would take about ten of the little drinklets to fill up a glass, so I enjoyed several of them in rapid succession-- a strawberry shortcake, lemon drop, chocolate kiss, and something called "151". After that, things got a little fertummelt. I remember almost nothing. I vaguely recall trying to remove my glitter nail polish, which apparently was hampered by the fact that I hadn't actually put any liquid polish remover on the cotton balls. I awakened to find that my tongue was inexplicably black, my hair was in dredlocks, and my fingernails were obscured by long, wispy strands of white cotton. I looked like a ongepotchket muppet.

I vowed never to drink again, and I haven't. Unless you count slurping. Do you count slurping? 'Cuz ever since I tasted my first Jell-O shot, I've been slurping like a freser. I found a recipe for those delicious Malibu shots, which taste like globs of tropical heaven, and the last week has been a haze of blue coconut excess. Last night, I showed up at the HEAT meeting with a trayful of shots, half of them already empty. My dear HEAT friends, bless their hearts, immediately held an impromptu intervention. Meshuggenah Earl, it turns out, is a former shikker, and he's offered to take me to one a' them AA meetings tomorrow morning, after I sober up a bit.

Oy-oy-oy! I am such a farshtinkener. Forgive me, readers. Forgive me, fellow Helfans. I'm done with the Jell-O for good... except for what's already in the fridge. What, I should throw out perfectly good food when people are starving?