I recently noticed something very interesting about my wife when the two of us are preparing to go out for a night on the town. While we are both in the bathroom brushing, combing, and plucking, my wife has an open beer sitting on the bathroom counter. Last weekend I asked her, “What are you doing, Baby? In 30 minutes we’re going to a bar to get beers. You already have one?” Unfazed by the question, she kept plucking and simply replied, “That’s my ‘getting ready’ beer.” I didn’t know there was such a thing as a “getting ready” beer. Apparently it’s a real thing.
As it was explained to me, a getting ready beer is a crucial component of being able to cope with the stresses of outfits that no longer fit, hair that won’t curl, and husbands that ask the same stupid question over and over and over again, “Are you ready yet?” It was further explained to me that a getting ready beer is also a safety device so that husbands don’t get a hot curling iron jammed in their eye when they continue to incessantly ask the same stupid question, “Now are you ready yet?” The short answer is, “No, I’m still drinking my getting ready beer.”
I have come to except the getting ready beer for all of its wonderful benefits. I don’t get my eyeball burned from the curling iron, and my wife is cool and relaxed as we head out for an evening away from the kids. However, the consumption of a getting ready beer does immediately delegate me as the person who will drive, since my wife has jumped the gun and already started to enjoy her evening ahead of everyone else. Oh well, happy wife, happy life. And at my house a getting ready beer equals a happy wife.
Some people refer to the getting ready beer with a different term; they call it pre-gaming. If you want to prepare for the party before you go to the party, then you pre-game by doing some pre-drinking before you do your actual drinking. If this whole thing sounds confusing, it’s probably because you’re sober. Drunk people understand this concept clearly and it seems perfectly reasonable to them. You don’t want to show up at the bar to get drinks without at least one drink already in you. Arriving at a bar completely sober means you’re probably the cops.
Once we have finally arrived at the bar, I’ve noticed my wife does another peculiar thing. She will tell the bartender, “Can I get a drink please? But this is my last beer.” Then 20 minutes later I will hear her tell another bartender, “OK, I’ll have a drink, but this is my last beer.” I asked my wife about it and she said, “I think I had three ‘last’ beers tonight.” Based on my wife’s logic she never had anything to drink. Her first drinks were “getting ready beers” and her drinks at the bar were all her “last beers,” meaning she never really had any regular beers at the bar. Confused again? You should be.
But to try and explain it using second grade arithmetic, it deals with the number line. You can’t get from zero to one until you add one to zero. And you can’t get from one to two until you add one to one. If you never had “one” beer then you can’t add another beer to one beer to get to the number two beer. The pre-gaming/last beer method, which results in zero beers consumed, is a complete paradox that should be blowing your mind. Regardless of the paradox, if you use this method and then blow into a Breathalyzer, you will be going to jail. Which brings me to my next point: avoiding jail through exploiting your children.
After all of the getting ready beers and all of the last beers, eventually it’s time for my wife and I to mosey on home. Being socially responsible people, we leave our car behind and get a ride home from a sober driver. Most people use Uber these days, but we choose Kuber, pronounced koo-ber, which is Kids Uber. Kuber is our own teenage kids giving us a ride home anytime of the night from anywhere. The best part about Kuber is it’s the right price, which is free. The bad part about Kuber is our kids like to judge us when they pick us up. I try to explain to them that their mom didn’t actually have anything to drink, but the kids don’t want to hear their inebriated dad explain the simple complexities of the number line while they are driving. They just want to get some fast food in us to shut us up and take us home—a smart move that any Uber or Kuber driver should utilize when chauffeuring around talkative drunks.
Our children often get frustrated with us because when we are asking for a safe ride home we usually don’t know exactly where we are. We only know the following facts: We are at a bar, and we know mom is currently having her last beer. It could be any bar within walking distance of the first bar we attended where we abandoned our car. My wife and I are free spirits, which means we like to drink spirits and then wander around looking for a bar we have never been to before. My wife, whom I love, has never met a bar she didn’t like. As we walk to the next place to have my wife’s next last beer, we discuss the enigma of the number line/last beer brain twister and also try to solve the rest of the world’s problems, like when is Chipotle finally going to deliver?
You may be thinking that my wife and I may have a drinking problem. That is truly not the case; we have absolutely no problem drinking. Our only problem is finding our car the next day.
Kuber: the real reason to have children. You can read more from Rob Krider or contact him at robkrider.com.
This article appears in Aug 25 – Sep 1, 2016.