Pretty Things

I'm attracted to things that come in pretty packages. That might make me shallow but it certainly doesn't make me abnormal. If it weren't in our nature to be attracted by bright colors and shiny finishes there'd be no need for male peacocks to strut around looking light Liberace at a Halloween party - minus the Halloween party. The animal kingdom is full of examples of some dope being lured in by a splash of red, a really long tail, or even an evocative dance.

This begins during childhood. My earliest memories of being mesmerized by beautiful things dates back to the candy isle. Thank God I wasn't a kid back in my parents' day. Back when the really cool candies were things like Candy Dots, Pez dispensers, and Circus Peanuts. I remember visiting one of my grandmother's friends as a child and being confused when she offered me Candy Corn, peppermint discs, and candied orange slices. Really, orange slices? This from the generation that brought us candy cigarettes.

When I was a kid we still had a few left-overs from the olden days - candy necklaces, Fun Dip, Big League Chew. Those were alright. But there were far more attractive alternatives. Usually these came shaped as everyday items. A garbage can full of small bits of gum. Worms made from a mysterious gummy substance. Spray bottles full of edible silly string. Aisles and aisles of treasure vying for my seventy-five cents. And to think, my dad used to get excited to find a rock hard piece of gum in the middle of his pack of baseball cards. Ridiculous.

Now that I'm older I try to be a bit more selective as a shopper. I see the transparent marketing ploys for what they are. Being wiser I avoid flash and novelty. Shiny rims on a car. Fancy labels on clothes. Shoes that do something more than protect feet from the elements. I toe the line of responsible consumerism.

That is, until I hit the beer aisle last Friday night.

I really only stopped by the grocery store to pick up some ice cream. But when I walked in and saw the shiny faux-wood floors adorning the liquor section I was drawn like a fly to filth. So many rows of colors. Rushing past the typical selections that are mildly interesting at best I made my way for the microbrews. Fun and wildy over-priced, they sport names like Doggy Style, Dogfish Head, and Horny Goat. The labels feature cartoonish characters and playful fonts. There's no telling what they might taste like but they look a whole hell of a lot more interesting than a six pack of Bud Light.


I opted for Wild Blue. Fitting the description of most every other microbrew, it was advertised as a blueberry lager. Hmm, I really like blueberry, I thought. I set it in my cart and made my way to the ice cream coolers.

When I got home my buddy Tim and I pulled out a bottle apiece and settled in with Tricia to watch a recorded episode of The Office together. I was the first to take a drink. It was god-awful. I thought I might have to spit it back out. Evidiently blueberry and beer were not meant to mix. Normally in a situation like this I would hide my distaste in hopes of letting Tim "enjoy" it as much as I had. However, I couldn't.

"Oh dude, it's terrible!" I cried. "Seriously, it tastes like blueberries that maybe should have been refrigerated but weren't and now they're all thick and gooey and rancid!"

To my amazement Tim took a drink anyway. He found it as disgusting as I did. We joked about just how bad it was for a few minutes and then he, unbelievably, took another drink.

"What are you doing?" I asked.

"I'm no quitter," he answered.

He forced down every swallow until his bottle was empty. Not wanting to be a quitter either I had no choice but to follow suit. Thirty minutes later I found out, after forcing down the last few swallows, that it was even worse warm.

"You can have the other four," Tim promised as he gathered up his things to leave. "Tomorrow I'm going to pick up some Hard Lemonade. At least that tastes good!"

So on Saturday Tim stopped by the liquor store to make good on his promise. However, he was taken in by the other colors offered by Mike's. There was the bright red of the Hard Strawberry Lemonade, the purplish tones of the Hard Black Cherry Lemonade, and the orange hues of the Hard Cranberry Lemonade. He opted for the green Hard Lime-Aid.

Excited, he grabbed two bottles last night and headed up to his room to watch basketball. He came back down an hour or two later toting the empty bottles.

"How was it?" I asked.

"Terrible," he mumbled. "I should have stuck with the normal one that I know I actually like. I don't even like lime!"

They say experience is our best teacher. For that to be so, the bar must have been set awfully low.

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A few notes of interest...

When searching for an image of Wild Blue beer I found that 377 reviewers had given it an average rating of D-. That seems about par with my own assessment. If I had an internet-equipped cell phone I think I might do some research there in the supermarket to avoid such mistakes.

Wild Blue wound up being an A-B product.

It was a lot of fun researching old candies. There were a bunch of them I had forgotten about. Like the wax bottles filled with candy syrup. I remember those barely having any taste but looking really neat (a word I would have used to describe them back then).

Candy cigarettes and candy "chew." Those two novelties warrant an entire essay all their own. I wonder now why no one thought to model those wax bottles to look like small six packs of popular beer brands.

A Blow Pop is a type of sucker. I really wanted to find a picture of what I thought was called a "Blow Ring." I searched that term. I just want to say that if I were to run for president and the feds searched my computer to see what I've been Googling I could be in some trouble. It seems they're called Ring Pops. NOT Blow Rings. Those two terms get you very different search results.