Cheap Beer

Ya know, I was inspired the other day. I wasn't looking at the sunset or ocean waves or snow-capped mountains, no.

I was inspired by the leathery, deeply tanned ass-crack of some drunk pyromaniac leaning down to light the fuse on what he referred to as, "the finale."

Is this the one where he blows his fingers off?

The 'finale', huh?

His night ends with a big red boom, right?

Blood spraying everywhere and a toothless grin because he's too drunk to really feel it. He'll say something stupid like, "Told ya was gon' be the best show of y'all god-damned life."

I could see the whole thing unfolding in front of me, but that's not what happened.

I have an overactive imagination, ya know?

A taste for the morbid, perhaps. Okay, definitely.

Fuck. Is it really fourth of July if your drunk, shirtless, toothless, witless uncle doesn't blow off a finger or two?

Where was I?

Oh yeah: ass-cracks.

How long did his ass have to be hanging out of his pants to get that tan? That's not even a plumbers crack. That's the ass of a nude beach swinger gone too long cooking in an oven of impetulance.

Anyway, where there are ass-cracks, there's bound to be beer. Beer aplenty. Cheap beer.

I don't drink cheap beer. Yeah yeah, come at me. But shit, if I'm gonna drink-- I want to savor.

Give me wine and whiskey.

Let me at least pretend to be classy while I kill off brain cells. That's the allure isn't it?

To be stupid, if only for a moment. How nice it is to be stupid.

But Uncle Garth is already an idiot. He drinks because it's fun. That's it. It's fun to get drunk and swing your fists around and fall down without feeling a thing. It's fun to be a small God for a little while-- to pretend your base humor has everyone laughing with you instead of at you, for once. Yes, idiots drink because it's fun.

And it is fun.

But.

C'mon, we know it makes us dumb, don't we?

So, for the highly intelligent, drinking is fun. Oh. So fun. But so, so dangerous.

Just another drop might numb our awareness of the dumpster fire of a reality we live in.

Just another drop might turn off the incessant stream of consciousness in our minds.

Just another drop might make us laugh at the pretty lights instead of thinking about the intricacies that must go into re-attaching a finger. Or the minerals that make those pretty lights. Just another drop and we might be dumb enough to fuck.

Just another drop and we'll laugh and dance and tell that joke. Or maybe we'll get moody, and write some shit, and it'll turn into a masterpiece? 'Cause everything is a masterpiece when you're drunk, right?

And after that drop, I'll remember. I'll want to crawl out of my skin. I'll think about that thing I did, that declaration I made, that clumsy fuck, for the next decade.

But Uncle Garth?

He'll wake up in the morning and crack another cold one. He'll wonder how his knuckles got bruised and he'll chuckle, or leer, or blame it on Aunt Cheryl that she didn't make him quit while he was ahead. Uncle Garth will be alright because the alcohol couldn't possibly make him any dumber than he already is.

But us?

We'll want whiskey.

We'll want wine.

We'll want to savor our demise.

So Cheers-- to ass-cracks, bloody stumps, and being just a little bit dumber.