For Want of a Selfie Stick

    Guinness Stout has been the ruin of many a poor boy, and Lord, I know I'm one. The most recent time was in the liquor store in Thief River Falls. Steve and I had come to town that morning to recycle our glass bottles. Guinness is a dollar cheaper per six pack in Thief River, so Steve always stocks up on Ireland’s best when in town.

  St. Patrick's Day was coming when I make my traditional Guinness beef stew, so I needed a six pack myself. But when Steve grabbed his three six packs, the rest of the packs failed to slide down the rack so I couldn't reach any of the black stuff. I looked around for a stick, but sticks aren’t something you usually find lying around a liquor store. I told another guy my plight and he said, "They let you go around back to get what you want." Ah, a beer cave.

   The guy pointed to a double door labeled "Employees Only.” That couldn't mean me I surmised. I walked past an office and into a large heated room full of cases of beer. Where's the six packs of Guinness, I wondered. I was about to seek help when a beer truck driver came in the back door pushing a load of cases on a dolly. He opened a heavy cooler door and I followed him through the slit plastic inner barrier.

   I then followed my inner GPS to the corner where the Guinness had to be and, luck of the Irish, there it was. I grabbed a six pack and pushed the other packs down the rack. I was feeling proud as I headed out to pay, but the cashier gave me a such a look of surprised disapproval as I hadn't gotten since I was in the custody of Sister Eubestrabius back at Holy Name School.

   The cashier had welcomed us on our arrival, but now she was all business. Her body language said it all. "I wasn't supposed to go back there was I?”

"No."

"A guy told me I could."

"Was he an employee?" She knew he wasn't.

I stuck my card into the reader. Shelly (her name) didn't thank me for my business. Nor did she ask if I wanted a receipt (I didn't). I thought of making a jest about spraying the beer racks with Pam, but when I saw her right hand twitching the way Sister Eub's used to twitch before she pushed the button under her desktop to summon Father McLain from the Office of the Inquistion, I decided to shut up.

Outside, Steve was lounging in the late winter sunshine. "Where ya bin?" he asked. "Shut up and drive," I suggested.

The devil's buttermilk, say some.