Inflation is fucking all of our shit up right now. The cost of rent, groceries and tons of other stuff has skyrocketed lately. And all you brokees aren’t the only ones feeling the squeeze. Even The Classy Alcoholic has had to downsize and start visiting the Monday thru Wednesday lunchtime strippers every week as opposed to his favorite Friday & Saturday night regulars. I even had to get a second job as a janitor at a bank so I could surreptitiously turn off the cameras at night so my Cousin Chico could rob the joint the next morning. You’d think that would’ve scored me a nice chunk of change but my dumbass Cousin was too hungover to show up for the job and his entire crew got gunned down in the street by some overzealous hillbilly who was open carrying and was really excited to shoot a bunch of Mexicans.

Anyhoozle, even though we’ve all made a ton of sacrifices I strongly believe that heavy drinking should not be one of those things we give up. And because The Classy Alcoholic is a man of the people I’m here to show you how to stay as drunk as possible, as cheaply as possible, during this dark period in which some of y’all may have to work two or three jobs just to make ends meet. Let’s go through the typical day of a working class person.

BREAKFAST: BOOZY CEREAL

Look, I get it. Eggs are scarce, bacon is pricey, and milk is pretty much just cow cum. That’s why I don’t usually start my days with breakfast either. I used to just wake up at the crack of noon, pour some coffee, gingerly poke the naked, smoking hot babe who passed out in my bed the night before to make sure she’s still alive, then head out to the bar to start my day. But none of us have that luxury anymore. Now we all have to make sure we clock in early at the factory for our 19 hour shifts and if we talk to any co-workers about unionizing we’re dragged out to the back and get shot in the fucking leg.

But just because our days are miserable doesn’t mean we can’t numb ourselves to them as early as possible. That’s why I’ve been waking up with a bowl of bourbon-spiked cereal every morning. A gallon of milk at the grocery store is $2.89 and these little individual cereal bowls are $2.49. But if you want to save even more money here is a tip: walk into your local upscale hotel like a Marriot or even a Holiday Inn where no one has found a dead body in the pool yet and carry yourself like you belong there. These places usually have a continental breakfast and if you can muster up enough confidence to crash the breakfast bar you’ll be eating all kinds of bananas for free. And you can swipe a few of these little cereal bowls with you as long as you wear pants baggy enough to hide them away discreetly.

Pour yourself a little bourbon into the milk and let the boozy bitterness blend with the milky, sugary sweetness. Let the nostalgia of eating cereal as a child before school wash over you and let the alcohol remind you that your childhood is gone, that both your parents are dead, and that the only joy you have left in your life is that you can almost afford to pay the electric bill since you saved so much money after stealing all that breakfast food from the lobby of the nearby Radisson.

LUNCH: BLOODY MARY SOPITA

Have you ever been to college? Either because you really wanted to get a degree or because you wanted to go undercover to get revenge on that piece of shit economics professor who fired his Mexican maid and almost got her deported after she rejected his sexual advances and also that Mexican maid was your mom? Either way, if you went to college for any period of time you probably remember doing it while broke.

(Note to anyone reading this who went to college and wasn’t broke: eat shit and die you little rich fucks.)

And the most prominent college student food group was cans of tomato soup that you watered down to make them last a couple of days. Now that Jack in the Box tacos are no longer two for 99 cents and instead cost a fucking DOLLAR SEVENTY NINE we’re all living like those broke little college kids again. But I’m here to tell you that you can take your poverty and still make it into a pover-party. First off, don’t buy regular degular tomato soup cans. Buy these little $1 packets of tomato-based Mexican sopita. These shits at least have some seasoning (otherwise known as white people’s kryptonite) and they have little estrellitas and coditos which give you some extra carbs. This is a wholeass meal in a bag.

And what kind of booze goes well with tomatoes? That’s right: motherfucken vodka! Pour that shit in, add some lime, Worcestershire, tabasco and a celery stick and you’ve got yourself a Bloody Mary that you can eat on your lunch break. Your boss will have no idea that you’re getting hammered on the job and if you wrap a bandage around your leg you can blame crashing the warehouse forklift into a pallet of paint cans on the tumble you took off your bike the night before. Plus bloody marys are good for hangovers so this will help you after coming down from that boozy cereal you had in the morning.

DINNER: TEQUILA RAMEN

I used to take such lavish vacations back when I could afford it. Did you know I went to Tokyo like six years ago? It was such an amazing experience. Then last week my Japanese neighbor stabbed me when he caught me siphoning gas out of his 2002 Ford Escort in the middle of the night. That’s as close as I’ll get to fighting the Yakuza again for a long, long time. The days of being able to traverse the globe on first class flights are a thing of the past. Now I only take trips to the southside of Tucson to gradually dig the tunnel that Cousin Chico will use to bust out of jail after they caught him for putting together that whole dead bank crew.

But I’m nothing if not an optimist despite how much I always kinda wanna die. So I bide my time for when I can get back overseas and I sit here in my flooded apartment trying to brace the door to keep the meth neighbors out while boiling a packet of a meal that kinda reminds me of my precious time in Tokyo: a 39 cent packet of ramen noodles.

If I had any real money I’d be spiking this with a bit of sake but unfortunately sake is expensive and I blew all my cash on a claw machine at the grocery store trying to catch a little teddy bear stuffie so that I can stuff it full of heroin and shove it back down the tunnel I dug so my Cousin Chico can stay in charge in that prison for a while until he can escape. So I decided to spike it with something I always have on hand: cheap tequila.

Squeeze some lime into it but don’t worry about the salt. Your tears will take care of that. You’ve got yourself some Mexican tequila ramen, a cross cultural meal that will help heal the divide between you and any Japanese neighbors you may have offended. Think of it as a spicy margarita in a bowl with noodles added in instead of ice or dignity. After dinner you can go to bed knowing that no matter what life throws at you, no matter how much you have to struggle, you will never let the challenges you face force you into sobriety. There’s always a way, y’all.

Stay strong and stay drunk.