Fred in the comments of yesterday’s post noted that his wife foraged 24 of these suckers during her perambulations of Cotuit. Today, expecting a minor haul of litter, I set out down the same walk as yesterday and found 47 of the little bottles of fun, most strewn in a single spot near Loop Beach, others scattered randomly around Main Street and Oceanview.
Here’s the scenario behind the evidence in my Sherlock Holmesian mind:
- The perp is an alcoholic. (Durrr. No way!) As a former bartender I know serious vodka drinkers are the real deal.
- It’s two people. Maybe three, but most of these belong to the vodka man
- The vodka man likes flavored vodka. Primarily cranberry and orange flavors
- The cranberry preference points to a local who wants to be a localvore and drink the native fruit
- The second perp likes Jim Beam
- The third is an occasional schnapps drinker, though I suspect Schnapps Man and Vodka Man are the same
- The perp drinks these at Loop Beach while parked and looking out at Nantucket Sound
- He is a he
- He has a drunk driving arrest on his record which is why he tosses the empties as he drives away, as he doesn’t want to be nailed under the open container law
- He may do this during the day, preferring to drink the more economical version from a bottle at home.
- It wouldn’t make sense for him to do this in the evening, unless he is concealing his drinking from his wife or girlfriend.
- He does not live in Cotuit.
- I bet he buys these at the Coop.
- I bet he drinks two, maybe four at a time.
Dusted for fingerprints yet?
“You can’t really dust for vomit…”
I would like to offer an alternative scenario. I have seen empty nips all over the town, not just the village. I would posit that nips have become an integral part of the mobile social scene of young people (late teens, early twenties) in this area. More easily concealable than beer or wine and packing more punch per ounce than either, they are the ideal intoxicating accompaniment to an evening of driving around looking for trouble or sex or, most likely, both. The immediate disposal of the empties (we call it littering) is, unfortunately, just rational self-interest. What fool wants to be caught with the evidence? As for where they get them, don’t blame just the Coop. Every liquor store, even the toniest of wine shoppes, has a full array of this street filth in waiting.
Good point, Nigel!
I’d buy that argument except the statistical distributions of brands shows too much orange and cranberry Smirnoff in the bushes. Our drinker is a one brand man. I’ll buy the young person argument for the schnapps and tutti-frutti stuff, but vodka is a real hardcore cirrhosis builder. The youth own the packages of Philly Blunts, New Jersey Beach Whistles and Coney Island Whitefish in the bushes. Our man is middle-aged.
Let’s find him, get him into rehab and clean up our otherwise lovely village.
maybe if the state included nips in the 5-cent deposit category, people wouldn’t litter them — or David could at least earn a couple bucks for his volunteer trash collection.
Thought of you when I saw this article on car-based meth labs and their toxic litter: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/15/us/15meth.html?hp
Be careful what you pick up!
Kind of reminds me of the days of Freddie Fraser. (I think that was his name) He hung out at the Esso station and was able to keep an amazing drunk going for decades. Completely harmless although Mr. Pells would wince whenever he started talking to some kid getting his bike tire fixed. It may not have made Cotuit a more lovely village but it made it a more interesting village.
Freddy was awesome to a ten-year old. He also liked to hang around the Coop. I think Harry Crocker kept an eye out for him.
Vodka man may be a woman. Hard core vodka drinking middle aged males are not normally looking for fruit flavors, unless they are really paranoid about their breath (and vodka breath does not carry that far, as I recall from the furtive drinking lessons I absorbed at boarding school).