An augmented beer story

A bit of an augmented beer drinking story, The last time I heard Black Sabbath was when I was forced to listen to it full blast while hung over, my cousin’s misogynistic boyfriend decided we needed to be punished for going out and drinking the night before without him at the Rancho Nicasio. 

Robbie, who owns S-Car-Go racing cars, decided it was funny to feed us Jagermeister boilermakers. Gawd knows what kind of beer—but with Jagermeister, does it really matter? It could’ve been a Grasshopper Nyquil with bubbles. I slid off the naugahyde barstool and it went south from there. I remember looking up the nostrils of the bison head mounted on the wall, thinking they needed dusting.

I was done and spun after two or three rounds. I cannot drink hard alcohol. My idea of living dangerously is an expensive chardonnay. Like Murphy-Good. My cousin has more fortitude, so I don’t know her final count but she soon joined me. I am terribly plebeian, I prefer unvarnished stout over beer. Preferably Guinness from Ireland. Murphy’s is too sweetish. Guess I’ll have to try a Beamish. Lagunitas is OK. But Guinness is as good as ten mothers. And gawd knows, my mother, a friend of Timothy Leary’s, was intergalactic. Positively orbital. But a Jagermeister boilermaker defies physics and good taste.

Luckily all we had to do was follow the dotted line on the road to get back home as she lived across the town square. Calling Nicasio a town is generous. It’s not even a crossroad, but a bend in the road. The dregs of an old racetrack. Walking across the baseball diamond was out. Mud. 

I do remember some hands and knees were involved with direct road contact because the paint on the double yellow line was smoother than the roadbed in front of her neighbor, painter Tom Woods’s house. I remember we were sniggering like raccoons by then. I guess it was a good thing there was no traffic as I doubt we would’ve been able to rise up off that road in time. Barrel rolls and dos-e-does were out. A good thing Tom didn’t have a shotgun. 

That night we out-competed the legendary town drunks, Sinead’s late dad, Bill Dinsmore (who had a breathalyzer ignition switch in his car), and Rich Gallagher, also grounded by the law, still rode his trusty steed, a dilapidated bike. A good thing the county never figured out how to attach a breathalyzer to the bike. It was a long walk back to the ranch.

And for what it’s worth Captain Kirk, or rather the actor, once stood in her yard pretending to drink from the well. It was a terrible B-grade movie, a Village of the Damnedish variation, I can’t even remember the name, not the Superman version ( that was her house too), but the Drady’s horse was in it. Poor Superman, felled by a horse. Enough to make you take to green drinkiepoos. Anne said it was called The People. More like the Pibble.

TG I was praising the porcelain god that night. It could’ve been worse. The couch was my Murphybeddish friend. The skittish kitties all decided we need some extra TLC that night and curled up around us like fat little mufflers, purring up a storm of chainsaws beneath our chins all night long. 

It was not a Pliny the Elder moment. Or was it? It was an eruptive experience, but no volcanoes were harmed in the process. Thank Guinness. Slaínte agaibh.

Signed, the beamish lass from Lagunitas.

(What is the half-life, or is it the half-lie of a story, anyway? But every word of this yarn is true, I swear to Gawd.) I think I’m channeling Eddie Stack, or is it Eddie Izzard.