Beer Me
A Geezer’s Notebook, By Jim Foster
I mentioned last week because of my advanced age (82) I will likely only live another 30 or 40 more years. I have had to change that figure. I now must make it to 179. I realize that would be a remarkable age for anyone to reach, even someone as fit as I am, but an announcement about Innis and Gunn a while back has forced me to hang around a few decades longer.
They brought out a new beer, Innis and Gunn Vintage, back in 2016. It’s 7.7% so go easy on it if you are a bus driver on a long trip. Ordinarily a quality beer like Vintage would appeal to only us connoisseurs and rarely to my friends who drink the wimpy ’lite’ stuff and have no taste at all, which, as a matter of fact, is the same as their beer. I only drink it when they have nothing else.
As I was saying, I have to stick around even if I have to go on life support until 2116. One bottle of this limited edition has been placed in a time capsule to be opened in 100 years and I want to be there. I only hope when I get to the brewery in Perth, Scotland, they have sense enough to put the bottle in the fridge for an hour or two. How the British Empire ever got so great drinking warm beer, is one of the great mysteries of the modern world. Of course they voted in a Prime Minister who looks like a blond Donald Trump, so we are not talking a nation of Rhodes Scholars here.
Perhaps you are wondering why I should be one of the very few people invited to the tasting. Because, my friends, I sent my name in right away to be first on the list. I will be first too since everyone else who signed up will be toast and I will be the only one alive to taste it. I might give the Queen a sip since she will be getting up there too and it would be the decent thing to do.
I can just picture a team of nurses, geriatric doctors (their specialty, not their ages) and soothsayers wheeling Liz and me up to the bar. There will be a slight delay of course since someone will have to slip down the Thistle and Firkin Tavern to get an opener. No one ever remembers to bring an opener to these things and we will need one since the Scots still won’t have advanced enough to make a twist-top.
I wonder what the world will be like for me a hundred years from now. If I have trouble with technology today, can you imagine how useless I will be in 2116?
I pocket-dialed my son, Paul, four times last Friday from my cell phone. He and Tim are looking for a home for me. But there will be big changes. For one thing, there will be no need for spoken languages. Everyone will converse with each other by mental telepathy. Whatever a man is thinking about, women will be able to read his thoughts, slap his face, then telepath with some other bozo and probably slap him too.
All the dumb stuff happening today will be ancient history. Even the big scandal of 2020 (The Donald will run off with Mitch McConnell – you heard it here) will just be old news like the time the Archduchess Maria Theresa’s underpants were found in the glove compartment of Mozart’s piano seat. Everyone got all upset in 1740, but it finally just went away. Now, hardly anyone remembers it – normal people I mean. It wasn’t that much a scandal since he had a good excuse. He couldn’t find anywhere else to put them.
Imagine 2116. Think of all the wondrous things I will experience along the way. All the marvellous inventions that were predicted to come along in the 20th century will be commonplace by then. No more traffic jams. We will all be driving hovercrafts and instead of smashing into some guy at 120 kilometres an hour on the 400, we will smash into him at 120 kilometres an hour over the 400. Now that is what I call progress.
Alas, things won’t be perfect. This being Ontario, we will still have to go to the Beer Store or the LCBO to buy our Vintage and if you are thirsty before 10:00, well, you will just be out of luck. If you live in Orillia and its Monday you are out of luck period.
