Beer Downgrade

A late snow settled over East Tennessee. This nearly causes a panic among my people. Southern Hillbillies are fairly certain that snow is the instrument of the devil. Snow causes a knee jerk reaction in us. We scramble to the grocery store and stock up on bread and milk. No one knows why we do it, we just do. Ask a salmon why he swims up the stupid river. He don't know, but everyone else is doing it.


Feeling the primitive call, I head to the food mart. Fortunately I am well stocked with bread and dairy products. But beer levels were beginning to fall dangerously low.


Just inside the door, a big set of titties caught my eye. I pretend to examine a bag of onions, so that I have a moment to take a good rack in. Presently, the breasts in questions started to seem oddly familiar. Curious, I look at ole girl's face. Damn it! She is an old flame.


We had gone out about five times, ten years ago. It was not much of an affair. She decided that 'sure he's funny, but I wouldn't want to have sex with him.' The relationship fizzled out with me only getting her top off once, for fifteen minutes. No, there was no sex, but I did wack off into her glove compartment once. It seemed like a good idea at the time.

She headed down the snack cake aisle. It was my chance to make a break for it. With a little luck I could complete my beer run without an Exgirlfriend Encounter of the Third Kind. I arrived quickly at the beer section and unthinkingly reached for two six packs of good micro brew.

Then I saw the obnoxious bright yellow price label, $9.59 per six pack. In an instant (and without my permission) my brain went to work. Two six packs of good beer would set me back $19.18, plus tax. Glancing over, Miller High Life was $6.95 a twelve pack. The cursed math centers in my brain sprung to action. Good beer: about $1.60 each. Shitty beer: about $0.60 each.

I slumped slightly into the beer cooler as the analytical parts of my brain came to life. "Here is the deal, we are unemployed. Our current income level is zero dollars and zero cents per week. We scratch our ass all day and live off our wife. Do you think it is right to spend an extra $12 on the high end micro brew? A year from now, will you remember the deliciousness of the good beer from tonight? I am afraid it has come to this, we are experiencing a beer downgrade."

Really hate it when I talk to myself, yes I do. Even more, it is infuriating when I am right and thus wrong all at the same time. I really wanted the good beer, so I attempted to throw myself off. Thus I could then buy the good beer. Should this be confusing to you, it is much worse for me.

Motionless I hung there half slumped over the micro brew section of the beer cooler. My theory was that if I was still, then the other part of me would get bored and go away. People were starting to stare. My brain did not give up, "put the expensive beer down and back away slowly." I refused to move. Then my damn conscious entered the fray. It showed me all kinds of scenes. The images of my wife feeling hurt and being taken advantage of, filled my head.

Slowly and dejectedly I replaced the good beer in the cooler. I felt like I was 7 years old again. I went back to that time when I wanted a Reese's Cup so bad I couldn't stand it. I snagged one from the shelf at the grocery store. Timidly I approached the check out counter where my mom had started filling out the check for our groceries. I distinctly remember a cigarette in her mouth. She looked down at me and the candy. Not one word came from her. Mom's right eyebrow simply raised up and she gave me "the look." Like a brow beaten plow mule, I put the Reese's back. Thirty years later, my mother's avatar lives in my shitty-ass pea brain.

In an attempt to exact some sort of dignity from the situation, I bought twice the beer. Feeling that I had reached the sacred middle ground, I headed to the check out line. Just as the clerk was handing me the change; "Dirty Ert, what has it been, ten years?" The old flame nailed me. A brief exchange of pleasantries; then I ask "Do you still drive that old blue Honda?"

Dirty Ert