Friday

"I'm giving up drinking."

"Why"

I just shrugged.

"Is it your liver?"

"No. Not yet."

"Yeah, eventually it will get to you. Stop Monday."

Monday seemed like a good day to stop. I could still drink for the rest of Friday and then see Emily on Sunday before calling it quits.

I was half way through my first pint after work when my phone rang. It was the second job; the owner would be going on vacation and she wished to get some things done. I was hoping to get a check for the first in over two months so I went in without much fuss and my plans for Saturday included driving two hundred and fifty miles, so not getting hammered on Friday probably was for the best.

I left with three checks totaling over seven hundred. It wasn't all I was owed but several hundred dollars is usually never a bad thing.