Crisis Averted

As the old adage goes, Satan doesn't open a door without causing you a considerable amount of mental anguish. Well believe you me, what ever wise old Frenchman first uttered that phrase knew what he was talking about. Allow me to explain. In my case, Satan is my wife. The door she opened was my fridge's door. After reading what she called my "whiny post" about lacking beer and "being afraid to go out in the rain," she took it upon herself to trek to Trader Joe's for groceries and beer. She returned home with one six pack of Simpler Times Lager, priced at 5 dollars a six pack, and one six pack of Red Oval Lager, priced at a ridiculous 3 dollars a six pack! Here seems like an appropriate place for the sweet joke I thought of last night: My anticipated beer-free evening turned out to be a surprising evening of free beer!* (Note: I did not take that picture. I found that on the internet. The internet has pictures of everything on it!)

Simpler Times Lager, as I've said before, is actually pretty decent. It's 6.2 ABV and is quite tasty. For 5 bucks a six, you'd be hard pressed to find a better bang for you buck (Equally good is the Simpler Times Pilsner, a little lighter on the ABV side but no less tasty). Now, here comes the mental anguish part of my extended metaphor, which by now we should all agree is very apt. Red Oval Lager, while made by the same people as Simpler Times, is kind of gross. Not flavorless in a Bud Lite kind of way, but gross in a Strohs or Schlitz kind of way. I wouldn't say it's undrinkable, but on the whole, if price wasn't an issue, I choose Simpler Times 10 out of 10 times if given the choice between the two.

But therein lies the problem. Price is an issue for me. Simpler Times comes in at about 83 cents a can, while Red Oval Lager comes in at about 50 cents a can. That's a difference of 33 cents per can. Go ahead, check my math if you don't believe me. While that difference may seem negligible at first glance, I anticipate Trader Joe's beers to constitute upwards of 200 of my 1000 beers. If I only drank Simpler Times for those 200 beers, I would spend $66 dollars more over the course of the year. Again, while that may not seem like much, to think of that another way, that's 6,600 pennies, which put side-by-side would stretch more than the length of a football field (this is true! I did the math!). Or to think of it another, more helpful way, that's money for 22 extra six packs of Red Oval Lager. So what's a man on a mission to do? Drink more or drink better?

When it comes down to it, I think the question boils down to, "Would I pay $66 a year to ensure that every beer I drink over that year tastes better than Red Oval Lager?" The answer to that question, I'm pretty sure, is yes. But we'll see. Sometimes I might get super cheap. Sometimes I might only have 3 dollars on me. But as far as I can tell, Red Oval Lager's time in my fridge will be short lived.

So on to the beer drinking. Last night I drank 4 beers in my apartment (I was only going to drink 3, but then Liz decided she wanted one, and what am I going to do? Let my wife drink alone? I'm not a monster.) 2 Simpler Times Lagers and 2 Red Oval Lagers.

Total Beers: 77 Where I should be: 68.493

*Boooooooooo!