Greetings, my fellow linguistic tricksters. Grab your spiked coffee, Texas tea, or, what the hell, a tall shot of breakfast whiskey.. It’s time for our Word of the Day, and today’s lucky contestant is “surfeit.”
If you’re like 95% of your semiliterate cohorts, you’ve likely never heard of it.  Well, buckle up, buttercup, because Uncle Jayson’s about to give you an education.
Surfeit, my dear reader, is a noun that means an excessive amount of something. Like when you go to Costco and buy a 75lb case of parmesan cheese because it’s on sale, only to realize when you get home that you live alone and only use parmesan cheese twice a month when you make yourself pasta. That, my friend, is a surfeit of parmesan cheese.
But let’s not stop there.  A surfeit isn’t just an excess; it’s an excessive excess. It’s like taking gluttony, cranking it up to eleven, and then adding 50lbs of cherries on top. It’s the kind of excess that makes people look at you and say, “Damn, Caligula, that’s excessive.”
Imagine going to a buffet and not just filling your plate, but stacking it high until it resembles the Leaning Tower of Pisa. And then going back for seconds. And thirds. And maybe even fourths. That’s a surfeit of food. And also probably a one-way ticket to a very uncomfortable evening.
Now, I can see you sitting there, thinking to yourself, “Why on God’s abandoned earth would I ever need to use this word?” Well, the next time you’re at a party, and someone asks why you’re ferociously hoarding all the guacamole, you can just look them in the eye and say, “I have a surfeit of love for avocados.” Not only will you sound incredibly sophisticated, but you’ll also have a great excuse for your guacamole greed.
So there it is: Surfeit. A word that’s as fun to say as it is to experience. Unless we’re talking about 75lbs of parmesan cheese. In which case, in the spirit of charity and good will, leave it on the steps of a local soup kitchen: somebody will eat it.
Now let’s use this bastard in a story:
Our hero, dear friends, is none other than yrs. truly. And our setting? The hallowed halls of the ‘Drunken Donkey’, the finest (and only) pub in my little corner of nowhere. It was a Friday night, or maybe a Tuesday—it’s hard to remember when every day feels like a weekend.
I was sitting at the bar, nursing my third—or was it fourth?—pint of the Donkey’s famous ‘Kick-Ass Ale’. Across from me, Old Man Jenkins was snoring into his whiskey, a regular tableau at the ‘Donkey’.
Enter our villain: the infamous ‘Gut-Puncher’, a drink so potent, it could knock out a horse—or an overly confident fool who thought he could handle his liquor. Spoiler alert: that fool was me.
“Oh, come on,” slurred my buddy Pete, as he slammed the Gut-Puncher down in front of me. “Don’t tell me you’re scared.”
“I’m not scared,” I shot back. “I’m terrified. There’s a difference.”
But under the weight of peer pressure and the haze of alcohol, my common sense took a backseat. I grabbed the Gut-Puncher, raised it high, and declared, “To a surfeit of bad decisions!”
The crowd cheered. I chugged. The world spun.
When I woke up the next morning, sprawled on my bathroom floor with a throbbing headache and a mouth that tasted like a rabid raccoon’s ass, I had two thoughts. The first was, “Why is there a garden gnome in my tub?” The second was, “I have experienced a surfeit of alcohol, and I will never drink again.”
Of course, that was a lie. Because the next Friday (or was it Tuesday?), there I was again, back at the ‘Drunken Donkey’, ready for another round.
And that, my friends, is the story of how I learned the true meaning of ‘surfeit’. It’s also why I now have a garden gnome named Fred in my bathroom. But that’s a story for another day.
Until then, remember: drink responsibly, don’t challenge Pete to a drinking contest, and if you ever find yourself with a surfeit of gnomes… well, let me know. Fred could use some company.

N.P.: “Come Together” – The Brothers Johnson