In the liquor store today I went to the back to ask a clerk if they had any unopened 24 packs of the beer I wanted. (Tuborg on sale for $9.95 a six pack.) The clerk went further in the back to see if my request might be granted. While she asked around in the back I started up a conversation with a couple motherfuckers who looked like they had worked harder than me all day and all they had was a few cases of empties to show for it. Scrounging empties is not worth the effort in this heat. You might as well hold up an air conditioned bank.
A few of the empties caught my eye. I asked them, "Where'd you get the fucking stubbies."
One of the sweaty guys said, "I don't know. Some guy just gave them to us."
I picked one up and cherished its cheerful brown stubbiness. The label said Phoenix beer.
I said, "Haven't seen one of those babies for a while. I wonder who brewed it."
The other sweaty guy, getting impatient with waiting for the clerk as I was, picked up the perfectly shaped beer bottle and said, "Must be from this fucking country someplace - it says 'biere' on it in the fine print."
The beer companies phased out stubbies right about the same time our country's fortunes crested and then started to break on the shores of over-priced oil, seal hunting cut backs and American Wannabeism.
Stubbies ruled when being Canadian meant you knew you would get fair treatment in foreign lands - even in Afghanistan.
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