Some Queer Beer

A strange thing happened today in my office. Many days, when people start to totter off around 6:00pm, one or two of us will crack open a beer or a bottle of wine sent to us by some publicity department and we’ll all have mini happy hour at our desks.

Recently, I learned that one of the designers for our sister magazine makes homemade beer. He brought some into the office for us to try and it was delicious. Today, I happened to walk by his desk  at the precise moment of beer crackery, and was offered a taste of his “cupcake” brew, a stout flavored with chocolate and coffee and named after his girlfriend, whose picture was on the label.

“It’s a little caffeinated,” he said as I poured myself about two ounces worth, and I thought, “Good! I’ll have a little buzz to get me home on my bike in this rainstorm.”

Several of the other editors also had some of this cupcake beer, and we’re sitting at our desks performing various bits of editory, when suddenly I start to get extremely excited about things. My EMAIL for instance! was very cool and awesome and NEW! Hooray a new Message!  And then I got a good email from Wired! And that was nice! (!!) and then there were magazine pages to look at and HEY A NEW OUTSIDE MAGAZINE WANT A FRESCA? DID THE BOSS LEAVE? WHERE’S MIKE IGOTANEWTWITTERFOLLOWERYAYYYY! and then I started to feel weird.

“I feel weird,” I said, and started looking around at the things on my desk. An unfortunate number of them were looking at me.

"We feel weird too," they said. "Come PLAY with us!"

“I don’t want to play with you. I feel weird. Hey NumbaOnePunna, do you feel weird?”

“I think I am…. high?  I feel high,” said NumbaOnePunna.

I began to think, for the first time, that it hadn't been a great idea to put googlie eyes on my desk plant.

“Hey,” says Numba. “How much caffeine is in this stuff?”

“About as much as a cup of coffee?” says the beermaker.

(I think he is mistaken, for the record).

Anyway, I made it home on my bike, and then I maybe had a heart attack. Or a panic attack? Or an… attack of the killer tomatoes? And then I washed my dishes, which was FUNANDEXCITING and now I’m going to watch my coworker play bass! and fight! with! his! steel! guitar! player!

It’s raining!!