#5 and the Great American Beer Fest
This week, I went on a date with #5 to the Great American Beer Festival. It featured 800 breweries in a place larger than a football arena, and something like 3 zillion people. Everyone but me and my date was over six feet tall and in costume. There were Cat in the Hat hats. There were lederhosen and beer logo leggings, horned Viking helmets with long faux braids. Grownups in plush animal onesies. Leprechauns (tall ones). At the very least, beer-themed t-shirts and homemade necklaces of pretzel twists, string cheese, Cheetos, and sliced salami were de rigueur.
I felt Lilliputian and underdressed in a plain shirt and corduroys. #5 was casual too, and it made me like him more (though I certainly would've approved a "What Would Jesus Drink" t-shirt had he so chosen). There was only one food vendor, mass producing brick oven personal pizzas for $10 a pop. They came out heavy with raw dough. Lacking a carbohydrate necklace of my own, I ate the burned cheese and bit of crusty edges off one. I'd forgotten my brain at work and skipped dinner, though everyone knows the walking disaster I become when drinking beer on an empty stomach.
A few years ago, in Tiananmen Square in Beijing, I turned away from my tour group to snap a photo and when I turned back, the group had vanished. Almost the exact same thing happened at GABF. I spent 30 minutes looking for my date, all the while suffering PTSD - how would I get home? Does anyone here speak English? - only to finally locate him in the very spot we'd last been together. "Where have you been?" we said to each other. "Right here!" we replied.
I tasted a lot - though nowhere near 800 types - of beer in one-ounce increments, and I had a fine time in spite of myself. My taste for craft beer got me over my fear and loathing of festivals, crowds, and convention centers, at least for this one night. #5 introduced me to his best friends, a Quebecois and his American wife. J the Q was one of those ultra blunt people whom I prefer with a foreign accent. "How you know my friend? How long have you been...?" I was curious myself, so I scrolled back through our online chat and saw #5's first contact proved he'd read my entire profile. "Hi. Looking for a taco truck huh? Best food truck I found served cheese steak sandwiches. Having a good evening?" on August 1.
JQ said, "Dees guy, he never tell me anything! Two month!" Like 62 was a serious number of days. I shrugged. "We met online. We're not, you know, moving fast here, there's no hurry..." while JQ bobbed his head in that way married people nod at single people's silliness. They can't hear us when we say, "No, really, this is a conscious choice, to date, rather than rush into a relationship."
Later, #5 told me JQ's wife had said, "You should marry her!" I'd exchanged maybe 25 words with the woman, most of them shouted unheard in the din of GABF. I shook my head as we laughed. #5 said, "Have you heard that quote of Sam Kinison's?" I hadn't. "Marriage is like a cult. They're always saying, 'Come, join us.'" We toasted our good fortune with one ounce glasses of a beer I'll never remember, though I'm sure it tasted damn good.
