alcohol beer beer bottles beverage

The C word

Dear Sophia

It was Crate Day, the New Zealand holiday – it is held on the first Saturday of December. Participants are encouraged to drink a whole crate of beer. That is 12 large 750ml bottles or for the imperials amongst us that is that works out to be just under two and a half gallons of beer.

Why?

Because it’s spring, and a lot of college students have finished school for the year. That’s a lot of young people reconnecting all at once.

The Crate travels with its person to a lot of social engagements throughout the day. People will try to get in the car with open alcohol – but in Auckland, and most of the country, that is against the rules – both Uber & local government.

“The Roadie” is a time-honoured tradition – riding to your event, beer or RTD in hand, is de rigeur for certain age groups. So when I tell them ‘no’ I get pushed back a lot. 

As I was waiting for this ride to show up, one tumbled down the drive, looked at me with bright blue eyes and said “I have to whizz” proceeded to whip it out and do just that up against a stone fence. His mate tumbled down the same drive and got into the car. They both stowed their crates in the boot. The whizzer got in the car and asked if he could drink one of his beers.

“Nope” I said “no way, the police will get on my case and fine ME and blue eyes you are cute but you are not $300 worth of cute” He laughed and they both said “Hey, we’ll pay!” and I said “oh yeah? Where do I find you then? Do you even have any money on you? They made a show of looking through their pockets “We’re good for it” they said

“Uh huh” I said, “I bet it’s going to be so easy to find you too, huh?”

“Well” said one of them “You can hold my phone” The Whizzer pipes up “YOU CAN HAVE MY UNDERWEAR”

“Why would I want your underwear? Is it super fancy underwear? It is something that I could wear? Are you going to give it to me to hold?”

I laughed derisively.

Their destination was 7 minutes away. “I sternly looked in the rear-view mirror and said “Dudes, we are 7 minutes away from your destination – so you are telling me that you cannot wait 7 minutes to drink a beer? Do you think you might have a wee problem?”

“So where are you from anyway?” they said laughing.

I gave them the New England/New York run down. One of them pipes up “Hey my mom is from New England; she lives in San Diego now. She said there was only one word you can never say to a Boston girl.”

I laughed and said “Heh, you are right, you should never, ever say that word to a New England girl. There’s a fella I haven’t talked to for forty years because he called me that word. Kinda regret that actually.”

Naturally they started bandying it about because, young men.

We got to their destination, they were in a good mood, jumped out of the car, grabbed their beers, cracked one open and then leaned into the passenger side window.

“Say it” one said and then “Say it” said the other one.

“Off you go ya miserable c*nts”

They ran into the Crate party, screaming with laughter.

Love, Lilo