Anything can happen

The untold story of Wednesday night's strong beer victory is that Jamaica, who is responsible for inspiring us to go for the glass in the first place, still had two beers left to drink at the other brewery, 21st Amendment. No problem, we thought. We'll join her to get her glass and take a victory lap at 21A on Thursday night after her writing class which is near there. We might even try to finish Nelson's card, we thought audaciously, though he wasn't able to join us and still had five beers to go. But with a little fortitude, we figured Eric, Nonoko and I could probably manage it. Ha ha! Two more strong beer glasses in the bag.

But we had forgotten one very important thing: "while supplies last"

We arrived at 21A about 4 minutes after Jamaica to find her already in a lathery panic.

"They're out of glasses! They're out of glasses!" She was wild-eyed and frantic. Not only that, but they were out of four of the six beers that must be drunk to deserve the glass. Nelson's card was worthless - too many gaps. But the two they had were just the two Jamaica needed.

She immediately called Magnolia and the surly server who answered the phone informed her that there were two glasses left and there were people at the bar at that moment getting ready to claim them.

Jamaica's head nearly exploded.

"Do you know how much you guys wanted the glasses?" she looked pointedly at Eric and me. "Well multiply that by...four!"

Whoa.

"I've got to get over there!" she declared. Magnolia is about 20 minutes across town and she still had to get the two beers at 21A before she could go. And she needed someone to give her a ride. It was clear to everyone but Jamaica that this was simply not going to happen. But she was not ready to concede defeat.

And so, in spite of the full pint of beer I had only taken a mere sip of and the pizza on the way, I agreed to take up the offer of an adventurous race across town just to see if somehow we could make it work.

She ordered both of the beers, got her card stamped and completed, and we dashed out the door, leaving Eric and Nonoko to guard the beers, eat the pizza and hopefully find something to talk about while doing so.

We made it over there in record time and Jamaica didn't even wait for me to come to a complete stop; she literally leapt from the car as I was still slowing down to let her out.

A few minutes later she emerged from Magnolia: victorious.

She stood on the corner outside Magnolia waiting for the light to change, holding the carefully wrapped glass over her head as though it were the Stanley cup. She was beaming.

She climbed back in the car, handling the strong beer glass with reverent tenderness.*

"Wow!" she gushed. "I feel like I did when I found out I got into Brown."


*I think the more apt description will be to one day say "she cradled the newborn baby as carefully and lovingly as though it were as strong beer glass"