“I’ll have to check, we might be out of Bud Select today, what do you want instead —- Bud Light?” No, you can’t replace the best type of Bud…
It seems so impossible before it happens. You see it approaching. You see all of the warning signs, all of the speed bumps preparing you for the abrupt stop ahead. Somber stories are repeated from old friends who are long past the days of sitting on rooftops at 2pm on a Tuesday, skipping class and drinking cold ones out of a squat, plastic cup, deciding that their responsibilities can be pushed off for at least two more hours, until they hit that Ballmer peak of “creativity” or whatever you’re supposed to call drunkenly typing meandering lines of thought and utilizing spell check way too much and re-doing it all the next morning anyway – but that doesn’t matter.
Right now, the sun is warming your opting-out-of-class-grin. The sidewalks are empty. The crisp 46 degree air is creeping up the sleeves of your jacket, which is really just a sleeves-rolled-up and unbuttoned flannel shirt that you’re too stubborn to cover with a real jacket.
And you know for a fact that right now the bar on the corner, the bar you always go to, well, except for Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays, is open. That bar, with the sticky floors and impossibly slow service, is currently serving moderately chilled beer in shitty stackable pitchers that you and your friends are allowed to purchase for the low price of $6 per 50 ounces (and it’s two-for-one right now, the best deal in town according to our spreadsheet).
You might draft an email, or pretend that you have some real work to do, but once the first two pitchers are sloshed onto your table, you decide it’s too dangerous for your precious unbeerproofed laptop. Your buddy happens to agree, even though it seems like he was really working hard. But who are you to judge? You pour one for him. He pours one for you. Don’t pour for yourself first — it’s bad form, even though this remains unspoken.
None of this was ever discussed, at least not in depth. A simple “Big Tweeze?” normally suffices, regardless of what’s going on at the moment. Those two words are always enough to obliterate any kind of premeditated schedule or hope of homework. Then again, weren’t we always planning this? Didn’t we drop out of our clubs, lower our class load, and pursue less ambitious projects to insure our ability to drop whatever bullshit was happening and walk up the four concrete steps into that bar?
You don’t have to worry about this right now. You’ve got some pitchers already stacked up. You may have hit a speed bump or two. A few friends have already left, gone away, to suffer, to endure, to get rich!… or whatever they’re doing. But you, you’re still here, and at least a couple of your friends are too. Two or three is plenty for a fun afternoon, evening, and/or night.
And that stop sign, it’s far away. It’s only February. It’s beginning to warm up, kind of. You’re getting that itch again, every time you walk by. You see it calling your name. The rooftop! If the grumpy waitresses will bear it, next week will be the week. Or maybe… tomorrow. Tomorrow is only Wednesday, after all. And you’re out of class whenever you want to be. And so are your friends, coincidentally. You can’t replace the best type of buds.