Last Saturday, we met up with some college friends at Christkindlmarket in Daley Plaza for some German beer, bratwursts, gluhwein (hot spiced wine in a boot!) and some good old fashioned Christmas-y fun. Then we headed to the Beer Bistro in the West Loop for – you guessed it – more beer! (And they also have a pretty amazing goat cheese and pepperoni pizza.)

But let this be a lesson, my friends, that extreme fun does not come without a price.

Because thanks to a lingering cold and talking too much, I now cannot speak. At all. And it’s not for lack of trying. However, when I do attempt to vocalize something, it sounds less like human speech and more like some sort of animal who is gargling and suffocating at the same time. Words are unrecognizable. Thank God I’m a skilled mime. (No I’m not.)

But Saturday was totally worth all of the sympathetic looks I’ve been getting at work today. I mean, I got to drink out of a boot – again – and I think I can safely say that drinking out of footwear is now my preferred method of (de)hydration.

Long live das boot!