This weekend I was at a friend’s cottage up on a blue collar lake.
Upon my arrival, they had just finished doing all the chores they could possibly get down for the 4 day weekend and decided to call it good late Sunday afternoon.
Excellent timing, on my part, if I do say so myself.
Because my friends are like family, I instantly went to the fridge to get a beer for everyone, only to find NO BEER.
No beer at a cottage is an abomination, afterall, what is a cottage for other than repairing 30 year old roofs, gutter, windows, putting in docks, getting the boat engine to work, mowing foot high grass and cleaning the place after a long winter of being shut up. To drink and boat, naturally. And in my case, to drink their beer and go on their boat rides.
I told my friends that they were dangerously close to losing their 5 star Rating for their craptacular cottage of which I am envious for and of, except for all the cottage repair job that grind them down to the point where they just go, " Fuck it, it costs too much to fix it and cuts into the sitting in the drunk chair watching the drunks go by in their fancy pontoon boats going WOOOOOOO." time. The beginning of the Drinking Season always starts out with an honest attempt to Better the Cottage. By August it is firmly tossed aside.
Being a good sport, I volunteered to run to the local store ( 7 miles away) to remedy this horrendous oversite. I was given an assignment to find kebob skewers, so as to make this a legit trip. Beer runs are for locals, apparently. Beer runs on an Amigo scooter. Beer runs on a lawn mower. Beer runs in a golf cart. Beer runs on a bicycle. And, if times were really tough, beer runs on foot, too show you the kind of dedication the locals have to getting drunk.
I hollered out to her husband, " I’m getting beer! What kind do you want?"
“Labatt’s.”
“That’s kinda fancy, don’tcha think? Y’think I’m made of money?!” I left as I watched him stare at the docks that wouldn’t put themselves in and he couldn’t do it with his bad back and two women helping him ( three if he counted his Mom, which he never did.) Giving me the Redneck Farewell-Safe Journey gesture, I was off to the local grocery store.
Fruchey’s. ( pronounced " Froo-chee" ) is a small town grocery store that the majority of teenagers and possibly twenty somethings have never dealt with in the age of Walmart and other MEGAstores.
The selection is not as grand. The prices are higher. The produce looks limp and lacking in color. The staff are mostly graduates of Special Ed classes, only not as friendly ( too much to tell in this missive, but you will have to trust me.) I didn’t look at the meat section in fear of being made an instant vegetarian. The magazine stand has a wonderful selection of hunting, car, motorcyle and tattoo magazines. Many word search puzzle mags but no crossword puzzles that I could find. Finding a word is much easier than figuring out a five letter word for fruit that starts with A and ends with L-E.
In the back corner of the store is the mecca for all the local drunks. In a wall of coolers resides every major beer available to drinking kind, mostly American beers with a few fancier kinds from Canada. Mostly, though the CHEAP ASS BEERS that any decent beer drinker gives up after he or she turns 21 out of self respect.
There, sitting in a case on the floor was a brand I had never heard of. Beer 30 lite. A case sold for around $10. ( I think.) Not wishing to make such a commitment to a case of beer, no matter how tempting the price, I opted for the six pack that cost $3.29 . $3.29 for a six pack. Think about that for a moment.
Knowing if I went back to the cottage with just some Cheap Ass Beer I would be skewered with the chicken kebob stick that I had just bought for a kebobby’ dinner. I also grabbed a 12 pack of Labatt’s, knowing that Good Beer Opens Doors. Because of this economic downturn, our vacations will be at this cottage mooching off of friends until someone drops a wheelbarrow of money at our front door, until then, it is best not to insult my congenial hosts with offending brewski’s. ( I can make fun of the neighborhood, the falling gutters, the second rate pontoon boat, the weeds that use to be a flower garden, the smelly well water that is barely fit to shower in. But beer is not something you screw around with.)
To show you how serious I am about my friendship, I used my credit card to pay. My general rule about credit cards is to never put anything on the card that by the time the bill comes in the product will be in the sewer or ozone layer. This philosophy has kept our family out of Serious Debt. We only have Mildly Amusing Debt.
Arriving back, I found my friends working diligently on using masonary glue on the Steps Of DEATH that lead down to their dock. The brick pavers always need to be re-glued each season and with my help of picking out the proper adhesive at Lowe’s ( 1 hour away) with my friend, we might have actually bought the OUTDOOR kind-a glue necessary. ( Years of buying INDOOR kinda glue probably as not helped matters.) The fact that the old glue was not chipped off in anyway to give it a clean edge for the new stuff to cling too, just spooged on to the old clumps of glue, will probably render this job ‘half ass’. As I told my friend this information, only receiving a look that told me he had gone a weekend without beer and his wife AND mom ( part owner in the cottage. Another story, entirely.) offering advice to him constantly told me he need TLC in the long necked form.
So, as I crack open a Labatt’s and give it to the husband, telling him that all home repairs must be accompanied by a bottle of beer to ensure Proper Drunkeness ratio to Getting Anything Done ratio. I am referred to as His Favorite Wife and then I bring out the Beer 30 Lite for my friend. She calls me a few names that are not repeatable in even impolite soceity and mentions how cheap I am. I ignore her gaucheness and we both take a sip.
" Is there any beer in this?"
“All I am getting is a water taste.” I say.
“Maybe the beer taste sank to the bottom.” She says.
“Like poop?” says her husband, who wisely refuses any taste testing.
The taste was more water than beer and by midnight I consumed the remaining four cans by myself, having not found another person in the zip code to fob it off on. Even the three college students from U of Michigan turned their noses up at the offer of FREE BEER. WHAT is this world coming too! Five beers in me and I didn’t even get a buzz. I am usually Two Beers and Done, kinda gal. So, this was kind of a big deal in a not-so-climatic kinda way for me.
I did get up four times in the night to go to the bathroom, something that even a decent beer can’t get me to do, so I guess it has a medicinal value for cleaning out my kidneys. I had no ill effects, not even cotton mouth or beer breath.
In the world of cheap beers, this has to be the lowest of the low and, I feel, would be an excellent way to dissolve any tenous friendships or business dealings by bringing a case of it along to your next party that you are dragged unwillingly too. It has the ability to reach mythological proportions of badness in the right setting.
