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Happy Father’s Day, Dad, thank goodness you’re in one piece for it

My Fellow Inebriates,

If I could give my dad a bunch of gifts for Father’s Day instead of one, I would. I’d give him the following:

  • Beer
  • Some extra brain cells (unfortunately I don’t exactly have a superfluity, too bad for Dad)
  • A power-tool instruction book wrapped up in gauze and surgical tape

You see, yesterday Dad had a classic DIY lapse. He wasn’t drunk, nor had he even been drinking. He knew exactly what he should do and how to do it. In fact, just a month before he’d authored a manual on correct installation procedures. But yesterday Dad got lazy and decided to drill something while holding it in his hand.

power-toolsWhat the thing was doesn’t matter. He was screwing around with the car stereo, jury-rigging some kind of metal plate so he could somehow stuff more stereo into a car that, aside from what he deems its sub-par sound system, gives him a total boner. The project has been a stereophilic odyssey, draining the car battery several times over and claiming not a few of dad’s ear cilia. But Dad has a long daily commute, and only a good stereo can make it tolerable—hence the project.

He was so happy when he came home from Home Depot with two bucks worth of parts that would be the fix. Overeager, we should say, because drilling a part while it’s in your hand is like ironing the shirt you’re wearing.

Typical for Dad, he entered the house in ultra-low-key fashion, holding a cloth around his hand. “Can you help me for a sec?” he called to Mum, who bitched because her rice was going to boil over. It looked like a little cut, and Dad was so casual that I could see Mum was going to ask him if he wanted a Pinkie Pie or Rainbow Dash Band-Aid. But Dad had drilled his hand in three places—two minor and one deeper—THANKFULLY just shy of needing stitches, and even more thankfully well short of needing thumb reattachment.

The Corrections

Well. The rice boiled over and we forgot about it. (A good thing—you wouldn’t want to see what Mum does with rice.) I made myself scarce, being the most absorbent thing in the room. Mum felt like an idiot for having so little First Aid equipment in the house, and Dad…Dad just felt like an idiot. To his credit, he didn’t even flinch when Mum poured the iodine.

Cheers, Dad, for injuring yourself only moderately. I didn’t want to laugh at you, but not too long ago I read Jonathan Franzen’s hilarious The Corrections, in which borderline alcoholic Gary downs five martinis and then decides to trim the hedge. I know you have a pretty high IQ, Dad, and you’re not an alcoholic like Gary, and even though you wouldn’t let me photograph your wounds for this blog, I still love you.

Birthday oops

Here’s what happens when you bitch about your birthday cake:

The next year you don’t get one.

OMG, my fellow inebriates, this just happened to me today! Seven years old…and silence from the family. I think they forgot.

This is definitely a Birthday Fail.

Or it would be, but my parents felt bad, so now we’re drinking a Cab! (Within minutes incoherence will set in, so let’s save the review for tomorrow.)

In the meantime, these pics make my family’s oversight seem much less egregious than it did earlier…

ISLAND LAGER—When you’re overwhelmed by thongs

My Fellow Inebriates,

Without a reminder from The Dogs of Beer (fascinating and worth checking out), I wouldn’t have realized today is summer solstice. I mistakenly thought it was National Thong Day.

The misunderstanding originated with my mum, who, after dropping P off at school, commented that everyone was wearing thongs. I thought she meant “a thong” rather than “thongs,” a term that dates my mother’s adolescence to the early 1980s—before the term “flip flops” became necessary for differentiation from the thongs I thought she was talking about.

My mother meant these.

I thought she meant these.

In their own ways, both types of thongs call for a stiff drink.

Unquestionably the drink should be refreshing and summery. How about an ISLAND LAGER from Granville Island Brewing? Effervescent and golden, this brew has a mild, inviting aroma—slightly sweet and grainy. It has a nice balance of malt, barley, and hops; if anything, it’s uncomplicated, which is precisely what you need after a Thong Onslaught.

When you’ve seen one too many thongs, it’s not just your vision that needs a rest—your whole body needs to calm down and cease being stimulated. ISLAND LAGER is undemanding that way; there aren’t any weird, exotic flavors that might send your brain on an irritating quest to place them in remote memory. The fizz is happy and sparkly—whee!

Seeing a lot of thongs can sometimes make you feel you’ve slipped a dozen IQ points. All the more reason to seek out a basic beer that will make you feel smarter than it is. But don’t let thongs drive you toward a nasty, metallic macro brew. Sure, ISLAND LAGER is basic, but we know from Granville Island Brewing’s other more exotic offerings that it could have been otherwise. This is a fine, unchallenging product that features malt and hops playing nicely together—with neither one snapping the other’s g-string.