Beer

 

When I was young, beer would get me drunk. I used to get very drunk on beer. I once ruined the paint on a friends Plymouth Valiant by beer puking out the window as he drove down US 30, west of Clinton, Iowa. He didn't wash the vomit off his car right away and the next day the beer vomit had eaten right through the paint. Beer doesn't get me drunk anymore. Now, at my advanced age, the only thing I get from drinking beer is a familiarity with the nearest bathroom.

My friend, Doug and I met up at a local establishment yesterday for a beer. But of course if you go out for "a beer", you never have just "a beer". I can have just one beer at home, but if I go through all the trouble of pulling the car out of the garage and driving to a bar, I am having more than one beer. Usually I try to have only two, but yesterday I was enjoying the company and I had three. One beer, one pee. Second beer, second pee. When just ten minutes after the second pee, as I was slugging down the third beer, I had to go pee again, I decided it was time to go home. Once again, beer does not get me drunk. Doesn't even give me a buzz. So, I have no idea why I drink it other than I am in a bar and that's what you drink in a bar. Okay, so I drive on home and about three blocks away I have to pee, really have to pee. I pull into the garage, run upstairs, through the kitchen, past an angry Scout who also needs to go out and pee, and straight into the bathroom. Ahhh.... relief. I then take Miss Scout for her walk and envy the fact that she can pee whenever the hell she wants to, on any lawn in the neighborhood. We round the corner at Thorndale and Scout is again, peeing. Behind me I hear somebody calling to me. It's my good neighbor Yahn. "Hey, neighbor, come on over here and have a beer." But I don't want another beer. "Come and have some food too." So Scout and I stop and have a beer and some Vietnamese pork.

I peed just about once per hour last night. I did get out of bed to do it.... and did actually do it in the bathroom.... in the toilet. I'm not that senile.