Petesophizing...

Wisconsin has the following ranks, among the 50 States and DC, according to 2003 data:

Alcohol consumption, casual drinkers: 1st
Alcohol consumption, heavy drinkers: 1st
Alcohol consumption, binge drinkers: 1st
Alcohol abuse or dependence: 1st

HOWEVER, with regard to ...

Alcohol related traffic fatalities (per capita): 19th

Drunk driving, it seems, is a skill like any other. Of course I'm kidding. I think.

Speaking of suicide: Even as the NIH and others have implicated substance abuse in almost 90% of suicide deaths, where in the ranks on selbstmord is Wisconsin?, a state necessarily depressed over being supplanted as the nation's cheesemaker by -- ouch! -- CALIFORNIA (those balmy beach-going, two-growing-season-having bastids).

Suicides per capita: 24th

We can handle it. Of course Packer season is only a week away. The next one surprised me:

Overweight and obesity rate: 29th

Not so bad. So much for the myth of the beer belly. But what about:

Tobacco use, total current smokers: 20th

First in drinking but twentieth in smoking? Hard to understand. Drinking and smoking, Bogie and Bacall -- they didn't do Pilates, you know. (Still the altar boy, I've conjoined Tai Bo boxing and Pilates in a cardiovascular discipline I'm calling Punchious Pilates.)

The other day I'm talking to a guy I'd say is a perfect specimen of Homo Sapien Szaz's Statehouse. I'd just met him on the street, a pleasantly round Milwaukee guy counting the hours until his 25th high school reunion. He'd parlayed a recent stock transaction into an open bar for all of his long lost classmates. He'd be picking up the whole tab later that night, creating an instant, but I think surprisingly enigmatic bond with people some of whom he hadn't seen in decades.

"What are you serving?", I ask him.

"Brandy Old-Fashioneds", he says.

I like him. He's full of grins. Right away he invites me to crash the reunion party, and then vents a little about a recent D.U.I.

I didn't even know they keep statistics like the following one. Go ahead and click the link, if you don't believe me:

Perception of alcohol consumption risk (defined as percent of residents who believe there is a great health risk in having five or more drinks of an alcoholic beverage once or twice a week). Wisconsin's rank: 49th.

"Brandy Old-Fashioneds", I say to my new best friend. "I should have known."

"No, you couldn't", he says. One final grin before we parted ways. "These are going to be ON TAP!"