Advice You Can Use

I don't know what made me think of this, but a few years ago, before Katrina, I was visiting New Orleans with a random group of friends and acquaintances. We were drinking beer before lunch one day when this one girl, whom I had just met that day, advised me to pour my beer into a glass before drinking it. This would, she assured me, help to prevent gas and thus enable me to enjoy my beer without gastrointestinal interruption.

A few months later, I found out this same girl was killed after she smashed her car into a tree off the highway.

I guess what I'm saying is this: Be cautious in life, but be cautious about the right things.

By way of disclaimer: I don't mean to trivialize the death of this young woman, who was a lovely enough girl as I remember. This story just came out of nowhere to bug me today, after several years of hiding in the obscurity of passing memory. Anyway, I think of her in a vague way every time I pour a beer into a glass, which is not something I was in the habit of doing before. Maybe it was pretty good advice after all.