Gen X Colleague Explains To New Junior That Light Ice Is Like Heaps Normal But For Grown Ups

ERROL PARKER | Editor-at-large | Contact

It's Friday drinks down at a Betoota Heights printing supply business and for one junior employee, it means observing the elders drink themselves silly while they enjoy a few Coke Zeros and an early bus home.

Account manager Alana Mulholland doesn't really drink much because kids these days don't really, according to the 55-year-old bloke that runs the show down at Downer & Sons.

But this 55-year-old, Mark Jervis, isn't the big drinker himself. Well, not anymore, he admits.

Speaking to this masthead today down at the Gelded Seahorse Hotel down the road from our newsroom, Jervis said he was well on the road to "Derryn Hinching" his birth liver before coming to his senses.

"So I swapped out the tawny port for Light Ice and my liver went pink again, back from the brink, she brought me. Heavenly blue can," he said.

"So I get where Lana's coming from, can't be too careful in life. One minute you're doing the macarena in the drunk tank at Surry Hills Police Station while the junior constables peg coins at you, the next you've got a doctor saying you'll need to shotgun someone's liver like Derryn did,"

"Knowing I'm not into caning myself anymore, Lana asked if the Light Ice I was drinking was alcohol free! In the 80s and 90s, it was about as close as it got."

It was during this interaction that Jervis speaks of that Lana asked him if he'd ever considered getting some Heaps Normals.

"I just laughed," he said.

"They're for kids, I told her. I'd let my kids drink one after helping me dig a hole or something. I mean, come on. You can still get pissed on Light Ice, you just need to make a concerted effort to. You'd wear the finish off the inside of your piss pipe, forget what the Latin name is for that? Aretha? Whatever. You wouldn't be dead for quids drinking that stuff as a grown up. Might as well have a Fanta."

Jervis then dropped his guts and our reporter decided to depart.

More to come.