Can Opener

I was raking up some leaves and tidying up the yard. Hallowe'en means more people walking up to the Hockey House than any other day of the year. Do not want the neighbours tripping over my empties in the drive.

Working outdoors makes me thirstier than usual so after every wheel barrow full of leaves I picked up I went inside to get a beer. Without beer nothing would get done around this place.

The yard was getting clean and I was getting pasted. I was getting that feeling a man is supposed to get when he has accomplished something and got himself pissed at the same time. It is a feeling the Canucks have only ever experienced the latter half of. I opened the fridge and pulled out another fucking beer. I pulled back on the tab and nothing happened - the beer did not open. "Don't panic," I told myself, "there must still be a can opener in the kitchen somewhere."

I am old enough to remember when you used to have a can opener to open every beer you drank out of a can. I prefer, and still prefer, bottles. Fuck the cans. But welfare beer, or strike beer as it is sometimes known, only comes in a can. Everybody used to keep a can/bottle opener handy. I recall opening beer with rocks and nails when an opener was not available.

The can opener was buried at the bottom of a drawer. It still worked good.