Buying Beer

Rewind -Mmerica's Birthday, Fourth of Ju-ly, Creede, CO: Nick Edwards and I were hanging out at the Elks Lodge Hoe-Down-Shindig and wanted a beer. Not Kip's margaritas. Not even PBR or Keystone. Something that really said, "MMMERICA!." Tecate, fuck no. High life? Maybe. Hold on, we've got it: BUSCH. In a can. Straight up, not Budweiser or Natty, just Busch. Great. Two please, keep the change, happy 4th. Nick, I owe you one. Wait a sec, this stuff tastes funny. The only problem, as we soon found out, was that it was Busch N/A. Like 0.02% Alcohol. Eff. (The waitress herself didn't even realize, was cool and let us shamefully drink Tecate instead).

Fast-Forward to Today - Ondrejov, Central Bohemia, Czech Republic: I'm buying groceries at this tiny place in town, completely confused, consulting my Czech phrasebook ever 12 seconds, when all of a sudden I go into the back room and find crate stacked upon crate of Czech beers, .5 liter bottles. And I jizz in my pants, I don't need a phrasebook for this.
And I won't have to wait until I go to the pub to try them all, I can do it when I get home, at 9:30 in the morning! I buy four: Gambrinus, Pilsner Urquell, Stravosometingorother and Bernard. Then, as I'm looking around the rest of the store, I see they have Budvar, the original Budweiser. "I have to get one of these," I think, "I'm in the Czech republic for crying out loud! I can't not get the ORIGINAL Budweiser." Great. All my groceries, including the beer, costs less than $20. Gotta love that exchange rate.

I get home, proudly line up my new beer bottles on my table, looking over the labels, admiring how beautiful it all looks. Then, it hits me like when everything you're experiencing is perfect and then you realize its a dream, but you don't wake up, you keep dreaming, and your dream just kind of stops being good - it's still a dream, you don't get out of it and wake up, but it's not as good as it used to be: nealcoholicke. COME ON! I know enough Czech to read that: non-alcoholic. Thankfully, it was just the Budvar, the other stuff is still full strength. I'm gonna have to drink it, I really do not want to try to deal with returning or exchanging it, if that's even possible here. I guess I'll get to see if Czech non-beer is better than American non-beer. But can we quit with the amateur hour here?