Originally published at: Drunk toddler taken to ER after restaurant served her wine in a juice cup - Boing Boing
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Glad the girl is OK, but if her family is anything like mine, they will have a story about her to repeat on Thanksgiving forever.
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I’m somewhat surprised the toddler continued drinking it when it didn’t taste like apple juice.
When I was a kid, I asked my uncle for more apple juice at dinner and he gave me scotch instead. He (and my father and grandfather) found it quite funny. As an 8 year old expecting apple juice and getting scotch, I definitely didn’t drink enough of it to actually get drunk (I’m pretty sure the sip I did take ended up mostly on the table in front of me when I spit it back out).
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Wine tastes sweeter than scotch and doesn’t burn as bad. Also, I’m not wholly surprised by what a toddler does. Basically if it’s the opposite of what they should be doing, then that’s on brand. A toddler is like having a pet monkey, but more difficult to house train.
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It would be especially surprising if “cooking wine” means one of the variants that is rendered unsuitable for beverage use(and thus considerably easier to obtain from generic grocery vendors) by either salt or vinegar.
If it’s actual wine of the “cheap; because cooking with it obfuscates a lot of minor sins” grade; then sure, that’s drinkable enough (though alcohol itself is an acquired taste); but “not less than 1.5 grams of salt per 100 milliliter of wine” or “not less than 4.0 grams (4.0 percent) of volatile acidity (calculated as acetic acid and exclusive of sulfur dioxide) per 100 milliliters of wine” means drinking enough to reach worrisome intoxication is going to be pretty unpleasant.
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There’s a big difference between what an eight-year-old will drink and what a toddler will drink.
At that age kids are still learning through experience what is and is not edible or potable, and a lot of that is based on what their caretakers expose them to.
There is a reason so many parents of young children used to keep the number for the poison control center next to their telephones.
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When I was about 7 I had something labelled ‘Pina Colada drink’ at a buffet somewhere and liked it. After that I would routinely order Pina Colada at restaurants - wholly oblivious to the actual nature of the drink.
My parents aren’t and weren’t drinkers, so also had no idea. I remember being somewhat ‘fuzzy’ after more than one Pina Colada at my grandparent’s anniversary party once.
My dad also had confused a ‘Roy Rogers’ with a ‘Tom Collins’ a couple of times, which made for humorous stories at restaurants when he ordered for us kids and the wait staff didn’t realize.
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Nationally I don’t know how local varieties of wines vary compared to traditional varieties, but in North Carolina the local wineries produce a fair amount of table wine that is really fermented juice. I realize that is basically what wine is, fermented grape juice, but the end result really is a smooth alcoholic “grape” juice. It’s somewhat like taking grape juice from the grocery store and spiking it with vodka. Chilled it is super easy to drink.
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Re-using containers is not a safe thing to do. Fortunate it wasn’t bleach or something worse.
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It’s a Japanese restaurant. I wouldn’t at all be surprised if what is called “cooking wine” here is actually mirin, which can have an alcohol content between 15% and 1% depending on the type. The sweet taste of mirin would also explain why the girl kept drinking it
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Our daughter wasn’t quite walking.
We were at my parent’s place, my dad was painting on the back screened in porch.
She crawled in, bumped a table, jar with turpentine tipped, it tasted good, off to the hospital we went.
Force feed her activated charcoal, she was black face and crying.
She had minor skin burns on her chest and stomach but all was good.
My dad felt horrible.
The only thing we regret is no photos when we tell that story.
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When I was a kid, I drank half a bottle of cough mixture, because “I had a cough”. I was then taken to the hospital to get my stomach pumped, no lasting effects (that I know of)
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Or as i describe it, “finding new and interesting ways to kill themselves. And being really good at it!”
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When I was a little kid, I used to pour cough syrup down the drain - I don’t know why, I’m guessing something to do with the color and viscosity. And one day, either I poured down too much, or I had been just doing it too often, but my mother noticed. And of course was terrified that I had drunk half a bottle.
That was probably the most terrified I have been in my life, thinking I was in SO MUCH trouble. My mom doing everything she could to assure me that I was NOT in trouble, but needing me to tell her if I had drunk the cough syrup because if I had, I needed to have my stomach pumped. And I just completely froze for what felt like hours, I literally could not form the words to tell her that I had just poured it out.
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I think every family has a drunken toddler story.
Here’s mine, about 50 years ago:
We are all watching TV, very taken by “Rischiatutto”, while my sister, then 3 or 4, comes in the room and says:
“Dad’s water stings too much”.
Nobody gives it a second thought, “Yes, he likes very carbonated water” we all know and agree he’s the only one appreciating it.
We obliviously do not consider “How did she get it from the fridge by herself?” or “Why is she bringing this up?”.
Sister trips on a rug and falls on the floor, starts crawling, slurring: “I can’t walk”.
We do get worried, go in the kitchen and find an empty shot glass and a quite depleted vodka bottle: my father had decided to pour himself a shot of pure vodka, not a usual thing for him (he’s more on the whisky side), but then the telephone rang, and he took the call - all but forgetting the shot glass and the bottle on a table.
Run to the pediatrician, she look at her and just send us back home - no need for hospital or any procedure.
No permanent damage to my sister, but we still tease her.
EtA: Thinking over “permanent damage”, I’m not 100% sure. She now walks marathons and lives with 30 cats (and a husband)…
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… so much of kids’ relations with adults is not about using words to describe reality but rather telling adults what we think they want to hear
The system breaks down when all possible answers are something they won’t like 
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In our family, it was the Alice B Toklas brownies, but pretty similar. I was (apparently) hilarious, right up until I face-planted into a wall and then fell backward. I cried for a brief moment, got a hug, and then slept it off. They were more careful about storing things where I couldn’t climb to reach. No permanent damage, that I can tell.
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