Beer Jokes Quotes

Men always say that as the defining compliment, don’t they? She’s a cool girl. Being the Cool Girl means I am a hot, brilliant, funny woman who adores football, poker, dirty jokes, and burping, who plays video games, drinks cheap beer, loves threesomes and anal sex, and jams hot dogs and hamburgers into her mouth like she’s hosting the world’s biggest culinary gang bang while somehow maintaining a size 2, because Cool Girls are above all hot. Hot and understanding. Cool Girls never get angry; they only smile in a chagrined, loving manner and let their men do whatever they want. Go ahead, shit on me, I don’t mind, I’m the Cool Girl. Men actually think this girl exists. Maybe they’re fooled because so many women are willing to pretend to be this girl. For a long time Cool Girl offended me. I used to see men – friends, coworkers, strangers – giddy over these awful pretender women, and I’d want to sit these men down and calmly say: You are not dating a woman, you are dating a woman who has watched too many movies written by socially awkward men who’d like to believe that this kind of woman exists and might kiss them. I’d want to grab the poor guy by his lapels or messenger bag and say: The bitch doesn’t really love chili dogs that much – no one loves chili dogs that much! And the Cool Girls are even more pathetic: They’re not even pretending to be the woman they want to be, they’re pretending to be the woman a man wants them to be. Oh, and if you’re not a Cool Girl, I beg you not to believe that your man doesn’t want the Cool Girl. It may be a slightly different version – maybe he’s a vegetarian, so Cool Girl loves seitan and is great with dogs; or maybe he’s a hipster artist, so Cool Girl is a tattooed, bespectacled nerd who loves comics. There are variations to the window dressing, but believe me, he wants Cool Girl, who is basically the girl who likes every fucking thing he likes and doesn’t ever complain. (How do you know you’re not Cool Girl? Because he says things like: “I like strong women.” If he says that to you, he will at some point fuck someone else. Because “I like strong women” is code for “I hate strong women.”)

Whenever the devil harasses you, seek the company of men or drink more, or joke and talk nonsense, or do some other merry thing. Sometimes we must drink more, sport, recreate ourselves, and even sin a little to spite the devil, so that we leave him no place for troubling our consciences with trifles. We are conquered if we try too conscientiously not to sin at all. So when the devil says to you: do not drink, answer him: I will drink, and right freely, just because you tell me not to.

the lost women I need to know their names those women I would have walked with, jauntily the way men go in groups swinging their arms, and the ones those sweating women whom I would have joined After a hard game to chew the fat what would we have called each other laughing joking into our beer? where are my gangs, my teams, my mislaid sisters? all the women who could have known me, where in the world are their names?

One more victim sucked in by John. You get into the room with him and you just fall into a warm pool of beer and video games and penis jokes, staring at the universe with him and saying, "Do you believe this shit?

Men always say that as the defining compliment, don’t they? She’s a cool girl. Being the Cool Girl means I am a hot, brilliant, funny woman who adores football, poker, dirty jokes, and burping, who plays video games, drinks cheap beer, loves threesomes and anal sex, and jams hot dogs and hamburgers into her mouth like she’s hosting the world’s biggest culinary gang bang while somehow maintaining a size 2, because Cool Girls are above all hot. Hot and understanding. Cool Girls never get angry; they only smile in a chagrined, loving manner and let their men do whatever they want. Go ahead, shit on me, I don’t mind, I’m the Cool Girl. Men actually think this girl exists. Maybe they’re fooled because so many women are willing to pretend to be this girl. For a long time Cool Girl offended me. I used to see men — friends, coworkers, strangers — giddy over these awful pretender women, and I’d want to sit these men down and calmly say: You are not dating a woman, you are dating a woman who has watched too many movies written by socially awkward men who’d like to believe that this kind of woman exists and might kiss them.

Many obese people spend a significant amount of their energy on suppressing the urge to tell some of the people who are staring at them that they do not eat as much and as frequently as they seem to.

Is that-am I looking at her beaver?" Mid-swig, I choke on the mouthful of beer, sputtering and coughing. After I recover, I ask jokingly, "'Beaver'? Are you Canadian or something?

Honestly, the weirdest part is how they made it feel like this big coming out moment. Which can't be normal. As far as I know, coming out isn't something that straight kids generally worry about. That's the thing people wouldn't understand. This coming out thing. It's not even about me being gay, because I know deep down that my family would be fine with it. We're not religious. My parents are Democrats. My dad likes to joke around, and it would definitely be awkward, but I guess I'm lucky. I know they're not going to disown me. And I'm sure some people in school would give me hell, but my friends would be fine. Leah loves gay guys, so she'd probably be freaking thrilled. But I'm tired of coming out. All I ever do is come out. I try not to change, but I keep changing, in all these tiny ways. I get girlfriends. I have a beer. And every freaking time, I have to reintroduce myself to the universe all over again.

Mystery is the face everybody shared before they were born and the joke they'll finally get after they're dead.

Beer makes all jokes funny. Beer makes ugly and fat women attractive, which is something ugly women can't do for themselves, because they're too busy getting fat. Beer is also refreshing and a good listener.

My room is a grave yard of whisky bottles in a swamp of stale beer, cigar ashes, and dick jokes.

Being the Cool Girl means I am a hot, brilliant, funny woman who adores football, poker, dirty jokes, and burping, who plays video games, drinks cheap beer, loves threesomes and anal sex, and jams hot dogs and hamburgers into her mouth like she’s hosting the world’s biggest culinary gang bang while somehow maintaining a size 2, because Cool Girls are above all hot. Hot and understanding. Cool Girls never get angry; they only smile in a chagrined, loving manner and let their men do whatever they want. Go ahead, shit on me, I don’t mind, I’m the Cool Girl.

Perhaps our culture is nothing but jokes.

Several years ago, Great Britain funded a study to determine why the head on a man's penis is larger than the shaft. The study took two years and cost over 1.2 million pounds. The study concluded that the reason the head of a man's penis is larger than the shaft is to provide the man with more pleasure during sex. After the results were published, France decided to conduct their own study on the same subject. They were convinced that the results of the British study were incorrect. After three years of research at a cost of in excess of 2 million Euros, the French researchers concluded that the head of a man's penis is larger than the shaft to provide the woman with more pleasure during sex. When the results of the French study were released, Australia decided to conduct their own study. The Aussies didn't really trust British or French studies. So, after nearly three hours of intensive research and a cost of right around 75 dollars (three cases of beer), the Aussie study was complete. They concluded that the reason the head on a man's penis is larger than the shaft is to prevent your hand from flying off and hitting you in the forehead.

That night at the Brooklyn party, I was playing the girl who was in style, the girl a man like Nick wants: the Cool Girl. Men always say that as the defining compliment, don't they? She's a cool girl. Being the Cool Girl means I am a hot, brilliant, funny woman who adores football, poker, dirty jokes, and burping, who plays video games, drinks cheap beer, loves threesomes and anal sex, and jams hot dogs and hamburgers into her mouth like she's hosting the world's biggest culinary gang bang while somehow maintaining a size 2, because Cool Girls are above all hot.

My mind was a mess back then as I drove across the country. I was driving to clear my head, and all I could do was obsess on my uncertain future. It's like you're at a crap game, and on your biggest roll, the dice go in slow motion. For months, you watch them spin and roll and bounce around, waiting for them to land so you know if you're a winner or a loser. Total limbo.

An Irishman walks into a pub,” she begins and the bar went silent. “The bartender asks him, ‘What'll you have?’” Her Irish accent was spot on. “The man says, ‘Give me three pints of Guinness, please.’ The bartender brings him three pints and the man proceeds to alternately sip one, then the other, then the third until they're gone. He then orders three more. “The bartender says, ‘Sir, no need to order as many at a time. I’ll keep an eye on it and when you get low, I'll bring you a fresh one.’ The man replies, ‘You don't understand. I have two brothers, one in Australia and one in the States. We made a vow to each other that every Saturday night we'd still drink together. So right now, me brothers have three Guinness stouts too, and we're drinking together.’ “The bartender thought this a wonderful tradition and every week the man came in and ordered three beers.” January’s playing and voice became more solemn, dramatic. “But one week, he ordered only two.” The crowd oohed and ahhed. “He slowly drank them,” she continued darkly, “and then ordered two more. The bartender looked at him sadly. ‘Sir, I know your tradition, and, agh, I'd just like to say that I'm sorry for your loss.’ “The man looked on him strangely before it finally dawned on him. ‘Oh, me brothers are fine - I just quit drinking.

One of the leading causes of obesity is the misbelief that, when it comes to juice, ‘100%’ means ‘sugar-free.

There's a joke people tell in the Soviet Union: Mitterrand, Bush and Gorbachev have a meeting with God. Mitterrand says, 'My country faces many difficult problems-- lagging exports, Muslim minorities, European unification. How long will it be before France's problems are solved?' God says, 'Fifteen years.' Mitterrand begins to cry. 'I'm an old man,' says Mitterrand. 'I'll be dead by then. I'll never see France's problems solved.' Then Bush says, 'My country faces many difficult problems-- recession, crime, racial prejudice. How long will it be before America's problems are solved?' God says, 'Ten years.' Bush begins to cry. 'I'm an old man,' says Bush. 'I'll be out of office by then. I won't get any credit for solving America's problems.' Then Gorbachev says, 'My country faces many, many difficult problems. How long will it be before the Soviet Union's problems are solved?' God begins to cry.

I always tell Noah to behave or I’ll sell him on eBay. You’ve got to have some way to keep these little buggers in line or they’ll just walk all over you. It’s a nightmare. Honestly. All the livelong day. Daddy, I want this. Daddy, I want that. Daddy, daddy, daddy! Gimme gimme gimme! I’m like, honest to almighty Christ and sweet and sunny jumped-up Jesus, if you don’t shut up, it’s back to the basement and the duct tape and the handcuffs again and I’m not joking. Now get me a beer, you frikkin’ munchkin!

You make out with a boy because he’s cute, but he has no substance, no words to offer you. His mouth tastes like stale beer and false promises. When he touches your chin, you offer your mouth up like a flower to to be plucked, all covered in red lipstick to attract his eye. When he reaches his hand down your shirt, he stops, hand on boob, and squeezes, like you’re a fruit he’s trying to juice. He doesn’t touch anything but skin, does not feel what’s within. In the morning, he texts you only to say, “I think I left the rest of my beer at your place, but it’s cool, you can drink it. Last night was fun.” You kiss a girl because she’s new. Because she’s different and you’re twenty two, trying something else out because it’s all failed before. After spending six weekends together, you call her, only to be answered by a harsh beep informing you that her number has been disconnected. You learn that success doesn’t come through experimenting with your sexuality, and you’re left with a mouth full of ruin and more evidence that you are out of tune. You fall for a boy who is so nice, you don’t think he can do any harm. When he mentions marriage and murder in the same sentence, you say, “Okay, okay, okay.” When you make a joke he does not laugh, but tilts his head and asks you how many drinks you’ve had in such a loving tone that you sober up immediately. He leaves bullet in your blood and disappears, saying, “Who wants a girl that’s filled with holes?” You find out that a med student does. He spots you reading in a bar and compliments you on the dust spilling from your mouth. When you see his black doctor’s bag posed loyally at his side, you ask him if he’s got the tools to fix a mangled nervous system. He smiles at you, all teeth, and tells you to come with him. In the back of his car, he covers you in teethmarks and says, “There, now don’t you feel whole again.” But all the incisions do is let more cold air into your bones. You wonder how many times you will collapse into ruins before you give up on rebuilding. You wonder if maybe you’d have more luck living amongst your rubble instead of looking for someone to repair it. The next time someone promises to flood you with light to erase your dark, you insist them you’re fine the way you are. They tell you there’s hope, that they had holes in their chest too, that they know how to patch them up. When they offer you a bottle in exchange for your mouth, you tell them you’re not looking for a way out. No, thank you, you tell them. Even though you are filled with ruins and rubble, you are as much your light as you are your dark.

He inquired next what Allan had seen in the stranger to take such a fancy to? Allan had seen in him—what he didn't see in people in general. He wasn't like all the other fellows in the neighborhood. All the other fellows were cut out on the same pattern. Every man of them was equally healthy, muscular, loud, hard-hearted, clean-skinned, and rough; every man of them drank the same draughts of beer, smoked the same short pipes all day long, rode the best horse, shot over the best dog, and put the best bottle of wine in England on his table at night; every man of them sponged himself every morning in the same sort of tub of cold water and bragged about it in frosty weather in the same sort of way; every man of them thought getting into debt a capital joke and betting on horse-races one of the most meritorious actions that a human being can perform. They were, no doubt, excellent fellows in their way; but the worst of them was, they were all exactly alike. It was a perfect godsend to meet with a man like Midwinter—a man who was not cut out on the regular local pattern, and whose way in the world had the one great merit (in those parts) of being a way of his own.

Descartes walks into a bar, and the bartender asks "Would you like a beer?" Descartes replies, "I think not" and poof! he vanishes.

And yet (this was the murky part, this was what bothered me) there had also been other, way more confusing and fucked-up nights, grappling around half-dressed, weak light sliding in from the bathroom and everything haloed and unstable without my glasses: hands on each other, rough and fast, kicked-over beers foaming on the carpet – fun and not that big of a deal when it was actually happening, more than worth it for the sharp gasp when my eyes rolled back and I forgot about everything; but when we woke the next morning stomach-down and groaning on opposite sides of the bed it receded into an incoherence of backlit flickers, choppy and poorly lit like some experimental film, the unfamiliar twist of Boris’s features fading from memory already and none of it with any more bearing on our actual lives than a dream. We never spoke of it; it wasn’t quite real; getting ready for school we threw shoes, splashed water at each other, chewed aspirin for our hangovers, laughed and joked around all the way to the bus stop. I knew people would think the wrong thing if they knew, I didn’t want anyone to find out and I knew Boris didn’t either, but all the same he seemed so completely untroubled by it that I was fairly sure it was just a laugh, nothing to take too seriously or get worked up about. And

The value of Greek prose composition, he said, was not that it gave one any particular facility in the language that could not be gained as easily by other methods but that if done properly, off the top of one's head, it taught one to think in Greek. One's thought patterns become different, he said, when forced into the confines of a rigid and unfamiliar tongue. Certain common ideas become inexpressible; other, previously undreamt-of ones spring to life, finding miraculous new articulation. By necessity, I suppose, it is difficult for me to explain in English exactly what I mean. I can only say that an incendium is in its nature entirely different from the feu with which a Frenchman lights his cigarette, and both are very different from the stark, inhuman pur that the Greeks knew, the pur that roared from the towers of Ilion or leapt and screamed on that desolate, windy beach, from the funeral pyre of Patroklos. Pur: that one word contains for me the secret, the bright, terrible clarity of ancient Greek. How can I make you see it, this strange harsh light which pervades Homer's landscapes and illumines the dialogues of Plato, an alien light, inarticulable in our common tongue? Our shared language is a language of the intricate, the peculiar, the home of pumpkins and ragamuffins and bodkins and beer, the tongue of Ahab and Falstaff and Mrs. Gamp; and while I find it entirely suitable for reflections such as these, it fails me utterly when I attempt to describe in it what I love about Greek, that language innocent of all quirks and cranks; a language obsessed with action, and with the joy of seeing action multiply from action, action marching relentlessly ahead and with yet more actions filing in from either side to fall into neat step at the rear, in a long straight rank of cause and effect toward what will be inevitable, the only possible end. In a certain sense, this was why I felt so close to the other in the Greek class. They, too, knew this beautiful and harrowing landscape, centuries dead; they'd had the same experience of looking up from their books with fifth-century eyes and finding the world disconcertingly sluggish and alien, as if it were not their home. It was why I admired Julian, and Henry in particular. Their reason, their very eyes and ears were fixed irrevocably in the confines of those stern and ancient rhythms – the world, in fact, was not their home, at least the world as I knew it – and far from being occasional visitors to this land which I myself knew only as an admiring tourist, they were pretty much its permanent residents, as permanent as I suppose it was possible for them to be. Ancient Greek is a difficult language, a very difficult language indeed, and it is eminently possible to study it all one's life and never be able to speak a word; but it makes me smile, even today, to think of Henry's calculated, formal English, the English of a well-educated foreigner, as compared with the marvelous fluency and self-assurance of his Greek – quick, eloquent, remarkably witty. It was always a wonder to me when I happened to hear him and Julian conversing in Greek, arguing and joking, as I never once heard either of them do in English; many times, I've seen Henry pick up the telephone with an irritable, cautious 'Hello,' and may I never forget the harsh and irresistible delight of his 'Khairei!' when Julian happened to be at the other end.

My father worked behind closed doors inside the house, had a huge ancient Latin dictionary on a wrought-iron stand, spoke Spanish on the phone, and drank sherry and ate raw meat, in the form of chorizo, at five o'clock. Until the day in the yard with my playmate I thought this was what fathers did. Then I began to catalog and notice. They mowed lawns. They drank beer. They played in the yard with their kids, walked around the block with their wives, piled into campers, and, when they went out, wore joke ties or polo shirts, not Phi Beta Kappa keys and tailored vests.

No- it was the best. Kind of joint where everyone checked their worries at the door. The beer was cold, the jokes came easy, we could smell the ocean, and everyone was always happy to be there.

It’s like that in the Watch, too.” said Angua. “You can be any sex you like provided you act male. There’s no men and women in the Watch, just a bunch of lads. You’ll soon learn the language. Basically it’s how much beer you supped last night, how strong the curry was you had afterwards, and where you were sick. Just think egotesticle. You’ll soon get the hang of it. And you’ll have to be prepared for sexually explicit jokes in the Watch House.

Being the cool girl means I am a hot, brilliant, funny woman who adores football, poker, dirty jokes and burping, who plays video games, drinks cheap beer, loves threesomes and anal sex and jams hot dogs and hamburgers into her mouth like she's hosting the world's biggest culinary gang bang while somehow maintaining a size 2. Men actually think this girl exists. Maybe they're fooled because so many women are willing to pretend to be this girl.

Yeah, have a couple cases of beer sent out,” Commander Wood replied. It was the current joke between P-3C and submarine crews. “Thanks for the data. We’ll take it from here. Out.” Overhead, the Lockheed Orion increased power and turned southwest. The crewmen aboard would each hoist an extra beer or two at dinner, saying it was for their friends on the submarine.

That night at the Brooklyn party, I was playing the girl who was in style, the girl a man like Nick wants: the Cool Girl. Men always say that as the defining compliment, don’t they? She’s a cool girl. Being the Cool Girl means I am a hot, brilliant, funny woman who adores football, poker, dirty jokes, and burping, who plays video games, drinks cheap beer, loves threesomes and anal sex, and jams hot dogs and hamburgers into her mouth like she’s hosting the world’s biggest culinary gang bang while somehow maintaining a size 2, because Cool Girls are above all hot. Hot and understanding. Cool Girls never get angry; they only smile in a chagrined, loving manner and let their men do whatever they want. Go ahead, shit on me, I don’t mind, I’m the Cool Girl. Men actually think this girl exists. Maybe they’re fooled because so many women are willing to pretend to be this girl. For a long time Cool Girl offended me. I used to see men—friends, coworkers, strangers—giddy over these awful pretender women, and I’d want to sit these men down and calmly say: You are not dating a woman, you are dating a woman who has watched too many movies written by socially awkward men who’d like to believe that this kind of woman exists and might kiss them. I’d want to grab the poor guy by his lapels or messenger bag and say: The bitch doesn’t really love chili dogs that much—no one loves chili dogs that much! And the Cool Girls are even more pathetic: They’re not even pretending to be the woman they want to be, they’re pretending to be the woman a man wants them to be. Oh, and if you’re not a Cool Girl, I beg you not to believe that your man doesn’t want the Cool Girl. It may be a slightly different version—maybe he’s a vegetarian, so Cool Girl loves seitan and is great with dogs; or maybe he’s a hipster artist, so Cool Girl is a tattooed, bespectacled nerd who loves comics. There are variations to the window dressing, but believe me, he wants Cool Girl, who is basically the girl who likes every fucking thing he likes and doesn’t ever complain. (How do you know you’re not Cool Girl? Because he says things like: “I like strong women.” If he says that to you, he will at some point fuck someone else. Because “I like strong women” is code for “I hate strong women.”) I waited patiently—years—for the pendulum to swing the other way, for men to start reading Jane Austen, learn how to knit, pretend to love cosmos, organize scrapbook parties, and make out with each other while we leer. And then we’d say, Yeah, he’s a Cool Guy. But it never happened. Instead, women across the nation colluded in our degradation! Pretty soon Cool Girl became the standard girl. Men believed she existed—she wasn’t just a dreamgirl one in a million. Every girl was supposed to be this girl, and if you weren’t, then there was something wrong with you. But it’s tempting to be Cool Girl. For someone like me, who likes to win, it’s tempting to want to be the girl every guy wants. When I met Nick, I knew immediately that was what he wanted, and for him, I guess I was willing to try. I will accept my portion of blame. The thing is, I was crazy about him at first. I found him perversely exotic, a good ole Missouri boy. He was so damn nice to be around. He teased things out in me that I didn’t know existed: a lightness, a humor, an ease. It was as if he hollowed me out and filled me with feathers. He helped me be Cool

Einstein tells a joke. “An infinite number of mathematicians walk into a bar. The bartender says: ‘What’ll it be, boys?’ The first mathematician: ‘I’ll have one half of a beer.’ Second mathematician: ‘I’ll have one quarter of a beer. Third mathematician: ‘I’ll have one eighth of a beer.’ Fourth mathematician: ‘I’ll have one sixteenth of a—’ The bartender interrupts, ‘Know your limits, boys,’ as he pours out a single beer.

Some of the wives had already put their names on the waiting list for Pan Am’s first commercial flight to the Moon, but now that wasn’t going to happen. There would be no “orbital newspapers, updated every hour” per Arthur C. Clarke’s dream; no Lunar Hilton, which Barron Hilton had proposed; no Lunar Disney; and no chain of A&W Root Beer stands that Pete Conrad and Jim Lovell had planned, half jokingly, to open on the Moon after we colonized.

Son: I can't go to school today. Father: Why not? Son: I don't feel well. Teacher: Where don't you feel well? Son: In school! *** What's the difference between man and Superman? Man wears underwear under the trouser and superman wears it over the trouser. *** Thomas Edison walks into a bar and orders a beer. The bartender says, "Okay, I'll serve you a beer. Just don't get any ideas." *** What happened when the ghost asked for a whiskey at his local bar?

Now I think my role is to make sure that everybody here gets the idea that we have a theme and to remind people what we’re up to and to set standards. . . . I’m actually a little embarrassed to talk about what I do because I love it so much and it’s such a sort of a selfish, quixotic kind of existence I have. But life is short, and if I thought we were being silly, and the beer was a joke, and it was all a con job, then I’d really be embarrassed about what I do. But I have so much fun and do such amazing things, I’m beginning to relax and enjoy it. Because I’m persuaded that the beer is so damn good.

Two guys are walking their dogs, one of which is a black lab and the other a Chihuahua. Passing a bar, the lab walker says, "Let's get a beer." The other guy retorts, "We can't take our dogs in there," and the first guy says, "Watch." In he goes and orders a beer. "Sorry, you can't bring your dog in here," says the bartender. "But, he's my seeing eye dog." "Oh, okay. Here's your beer." Convinced, the Chihuahua owner follows, orders a beer, and gets the same response—No beer. "But, he's my seeing eye dog," he pleads. "Yeah, right," replies the bartender. "A Chihuahua as a seeing eye dog? Gimme a break." "They gave me a Chihuahua?

Men always say that as the defining compliment, don’t they? She’s a cool girl. Being the Cool Girl means I am a hot, brilliant, funny woman who adores football, poker, dirty jokes, and burping, who plays video games, drinks cheap beer, loves threesomes and anal sex, and jams hot dogs and hamburgers into her mouth like she’s hosting the world’s biggest culinary gang bang while somehow maintaining a size 2, because Cool Girls are above all hot. Hot and understanding. Cool Girls never get angry; they only smile in a chagrined, loving manner and let their men do whatever they want. Go ahead, shit on me, I don’t mind, I’m the Cool Girl.

the Cool Girl. Men always say that as the defining compliment, don’t they? She’s a cool girl. Being the Cool Girl means I am a hot, brilliant, funny woman who adores football, poker, dirty jokes, and burping, who plays video games, drinks cheap beer, loves threesomes and anal sex, and jams hot dogs and hamburgers into her mouth like she’s hosting the world’s biggest culinary gang bang while somehow maintaining a size 2, because Cool Girls are above all hot. Hot and understanding. Cool Girls never get angry; they only smile in a chagrined, loving manner and let their men do whatever they want. Go ahead, shit on me, I don’t mind, I’m the Cool Girl.

Recently I have been attacked in newspapers by two 'fabulist' writers, as far as I can make out for the ordinariness of the worlds I portray. To which the most obvious reply is that it's all very well writing about elves and dragons and goddesses rising out of the ground and the rest of it--who couldn't do that and make it colorful? (Readable, of course, is another matter...) But writing about pubs and struggling singer-songwriters--well, that's hard work. Nothing happens. Nothing happens, and yet, somehow, I have to persuade you that something is happening somewhere in the hearts and minds of my characters, even though they're just standing there drinking beer and making jokes about Peter Frampton.

I remember Liz, her face white, delicate as an ash on the wind; her red lips staining the cigarette; her full breasts under the taut black jersey. She said to me, "But think how happy you can make a man someday." Yes, I'm thinking, and so far it's all right. But then I do a flipover and reach out in my mind to E., seeing a baseball game, maybe, perhaps watching television, or roaring with careless laughter at some dirty joke with the boys, beer cans lying about green and shiny gold, and ash trays. I spiral back to me, sitting here, swimming, drowning, sick with longing. I have too much conscience injected in me to break customs without disasterous effects; I can only lean enviously against the boundary and hate, hate, hate the boys who can dispel sexual hunger freely, without misgiving, and be whole, while I drag out from date to date in soggy desire, always unfulfilled. The whole thing sickens me.

slowly, slowly pulling up. Or grabbing hold of Debby’s arm, vise-like, for an Indian rub and what starts as a joke gets more and more frantic, him rubbing until he draws speckles of blood, his teeth grinding. She could see him getting that same look Runner got when he was around the kids: jacked up and tense. “Dad needs to leave.” “Geez, Patty, not even a hi before you toss me out? Come on, let’s talk, I got a business proposition for you.” “I’m in no position to make a business deal, Runner,” she said. “I’m broke.” “You’re never as broke as you say,” he said with a leer, and twisted his baseball cap backward on stringy hair. He’d meant it to sound jokey, but it came out menacing, as if she’d better not be broke if she knew what was good for her. He dumped the girls off him and walked over to her, standing too close as always, beer sweat sticking his longjohn shirt to his chest. “Didn’t you just sell the tiller, Patty? Vern Evelee told

Being the Cool Girl means I am a hot, brilliant, funny woman who adores football, poker, dirty jokes, and burping, who plays video games, drinks cheap beer, loves threesomes and anal sex, and jams hot dogs and hamburgers into her mouth like she’s hosting the world’s biggest culinary gang bang while somehow maintaining a size 2, because Cool Girls are above all hot. Hot and understanding. Cool Girls never get angry; they only smile in a chagrined, loving manner and let their men do whatever they want. Go ahead, shit on me, I don’t mind, I’m the Cool Girl. Men actually think this girl exists. Maybe they’re fooled because so many women are willing to pretend to be this girl. For a long time Cool Girl offended me. I used to see men—friends, coworkers, strangers—giddy over these awful pretender women, and I’d want to sit these men down and calmly say: You are not dating a woman, you are dating a woman who has watched too many movies written by socially awkward men who’d like to believe that this kind of woman exists and might kiss them.

the Cool Girl. Men always say that as the defining compliment, don’t they? She’s a cool girl. Being the Cool Girl means I am a hot, brilliant, funny woman who adores football, poker, dirty jokes, and burping, who plays video games, drinks cheap beer, loves threesomes and anal sex, and jams hot dogs and hamburgers into her mouth like she’s hosting the world’s biggest culinary gang bang while somehow maintaining a size 2, because Cool Girls are above all hot. Hot and understanding. Cool Girls never get angry; they only smile in a chagrined, loving manner and let their men do whatever they want. Go ahead, shit on me, I don’t mind, I’m the Cool Girl. Men actually think this girl exists. Maybe they’re fooled because so many women are willing to pretend to be this girl. For a long time Cool Girl offended me. I used to see men – friends, coworkers, strangers – giddy over these awful pretender women, and I’d want to sit these men down and calmly say: You are not dating a woman, you are dating a woman who has watched too many movies written by socially awkward men who’d like to believe that this kind of woman exists and might kiss them. I’d want to grab the poor guy by his lapels or messenger bag and say: The bitch doesn’t really love chili dogs that much – no one loves chili dogs that much! And the Cool Girls are even more pathetic: They’re not even pretending to be the woman they want to be, they’re pretending to be the woman a man wants them to be. Oh, and if you’re not a Cool Girl, I beg you not to believe that your man doesn’t want the Cool Girl. It may be a slightly different version – maybe he’s a vegetarian, so Cool Girl loves seitan and is great with dogs; or maybe he’s a hipster artist, so Cool Girl is a tattooed, bespectacled nerd who loves comics. There are variations to the window dressing, but believe me, he wants Cool Girl, who is basically the girl who likes every fucking thing he likes and doesn’t ever complain. (How do you know you’re not Cool Girl? Because he says things like: ‘I like strong women.’ If he says that to you, he will at some point fuck someone else. Because ‘I like strong women’ is code for ‘I hate strong women.’)

So you don’t trust me: the guy who taught you everything you know. I’m guessing if you have her”—he jerked his thumb at Rae—“that’s no accident. Luke’s buddies sent her to trap you, and she thought she was doing the right thing, because, duh, she’s already proven she’s kinda gullible that way.” “Hey!” Rae said. “You are. Own it. Fix it. Now, you guys have her, which means you escaped whoever sent her after you. You didn’t escape without a fight, given that bruise I see rising on Daniel’s jaw and the scrapes on Derek’s knuckles. But you escaped, and you came back here, and you captured me. Who taught you all that?” “Daniel and I had already started learning,” Maya said, “during those weeks you were chasing us.” “Trial by fire,” he said. “Followed by hardcore, hands-on tactical training. You got away scot-free from these guys because of my lessons. And yet now you don’t trust I’m on your side?” “Nope,” Derek said. “Sorry,” Daniel said. Maya crossed her arms and shook her head. I shrugged. Moreno broke into a grin. “You guys do me proud. I’d give you all a hug, if that wasn’t a little creepy. And if I was the hugging sort. But if you survive the rest of this, I’ll take you all out for beer and ice cream.” “You don’t need to be sarcastic,” Rae muttered. “Oh, but I’m not, and they know it. This is exactly what I trained them for. Trust no one except one another. Excluding you, kid, because I don’t know you, and you have a bad habit of screwing up. But these guys are doing the right thing. Next step?” Turn the tables,” I said. “Capture someone who’s behind this and get them to talk.” “Mmm, yes. That would work. But even better?” “Stop them,” Derek said. “Don’t just take down one. Take them all down.” “Without running to the Nasts for help,” Daniel said. “Because in another year, some of us will be off to college, and we need to be able to look after ourselves.” “Starting with proving we can look after ourselves,” Maya said. Moreno beamed. “You guys are ace. See, this is what I told Sean. The best time to train operatives is when they’re still young and malleable. None of that shit about waiting until they’re eighteen and legally old enough to consent.” Maya shook her head. “I suppose you’d also suggest he have the Cabal terrorize them for weeks first, so they’re properly motivated.” “Exactly. Personal rights and freedoms are vastly overrated. And there’s nothing wrong with a little PTSD. I’ve always found mine useful. Keeps me on my toes.” Rae stared at him. “I’m kidding,” he said to her. “Mostly. Don’t you joke around like this with your instructors? Oh, wait. You don’t have any. Which is why you got tricked—again. And got captured by these guys.” “Can we tie him up now?” Rae said. “And gag him?” “Doesn’t do any good,” Derek said. “We could try.

The funny thing: I’d worried, if anything, that Boris was the one who was a little too affectionate, if affectionate is the right word. The first time he’d turned in bed and draped an arm over my waist, I lay there half-asleep for a moment, not knowing what to do: staring at my old socks on the floor, empty beer bottles, my paperbacked copy of The Red Badge of Courage. At last—embarrassed—I faked a yawn and tried to roll away, but instead he sighed and pulled me closer, with a sleepy, snuggling motion. Ssh, Potter, he whispered, into the back of my neck. Is only me. It was weird. Was it weird? It was; and it wasn’t. I’d fallen back to sleep shortly after, lulled by his bitter, beery unwashed smell and his breath easy in my ear. I was aware I couldn’t explain it without making it sound like more than it was. On nights when I woke strangled with fear there he was, catching me when I started up terrified from the bed, pulling me back down in the covers beside him, muttering in nonsense Polish, his voice throaty and strange with sleep. We’d drowse off in each other’s arms, listening to music from my iPod (Thelonious Monk, the Velvet Underground, music my mother had liked) and sometimes wake clutching each other like castaways or much younger children. And yet (this was the murky part, this was what bothered me) there had also been other, way more confusing and fucked-up nights, grappling around half-dressed, weak light sliding in from the bathroom and everything haloed and unstable without my glasses: hands on each other, rough and fast, kicked-over beers foaming on the carpet—fun and not that big of a deal when it was actually happening, more than worth it for the sharp gasp when my eyes rolled back and I forgot about everything; but when we woke the next morning stomach-down and groaning on opposite sides of the bed it receded into an incoherence of backlit flickers, choppy and poorly lit like some experimental film, the unfamiliar twist of Boris’s features fading from memory already and none of it with any more bearing on our actual lives than a dream. We never spoke of it; it wasn’t quite real; getting ready for school we threw shoes, splashed water at each other, chewed aspirin for our hangovers, laughed and joked around all the way to the bus stop. I knew people would think the wrong thing if they knew, I didn’t want anyone to find out and I knew Boris didn’t either, but all the same he seemed so completely untroubled by it that I was fairly sure it was just a laugh, nothing to take too seriously or get worked up about. And yet, more than once, I had wondered if I should step up my nerve and say something: draw some kind of line, make things clear, just to make absolutely sure he didn’t have the wrong idea. But the moment had never come. Now there was no point in speaking up and being awkward about the whole thing, though I scarcely took comfort in the fact.

She leaned over the basket again, taking in the mouthwatering aromas wafting out of it. "Fried chicken? Oh, I'm thinking buttermilk fried chicken?" Dylan was once again amused. "How do you do that?" "I like food." "You don't say." "And I love Southern fried chicken." She tried to open the basket, and he tapped her hand jokingly. "Sit," he said. And she did, crossing her legs and plopping down on the blanket. Opening the basket and playing waiter, Dylan began removing flatware and plates and red-checkered napkins, and then wrapped food. "For lunch today in Chez Orchard de Pomme, we have some lovely cheese, made from the milk of my buddy Mike's goat Shelia." He removed the plastic wrap, which covered a small log of fresh white cheese on a small plate, and handed it to her. Grace put her nose to the cheese. It was heavenly. "Oh, Shelia is my new best friend." "It's good stuff. And we have some fresh chili corn bread. The corn, I think, is from Peter Lindsey's new crop, just cut out from the maze, which is right down this hill." He motioned with his head toward the field, and then he handed her a big loaf of the fresh corn bread wrapped loosely in wax paper. "It's still warm!" Delighted, she held it to her cheek. Then he pulled out a large oval Tupperware container. "And, yes, we have Dolly's buttermilk fried chicken." Grace peeled open the top and smelled. "Fabulous." "It is!" He also pulled out a mason jar of sourwood honey, a sack of pecans, and a couple of very cold bottles of a local mountain-brewed beer.

Men always say that as the defining compliment, don’t they? She’s a cool girl. Being the Cool Girl means I am a hot, brilliant, funny woman who adores football, poker, dirty jokes, and burping, who plays video games, drinks cheap beer, loves threesomes and anal sex, and jams hot dogs and hamburgers into her mouth like she’s hosting the world’s biggest culinary gang bang while somehow maintaining a size 2, because Cool Girls are above all hot. Hot and understanding. Cool Girls never get angry; they only smile in a chagrined, loving manner and let their men do whatever they want. Go ahead, shit on me, I don’t mind, I’m the Cool Girl. Men actually think this girl exists. Maybe they’re fooled because so many women are willing to pretend to be this girl. For a long time Cool Girl offended me. I used to see men – friends, coworkers, strangers – giddy over these awful pretender women, and I’d want to sit these men down and calmly say: You are not dating a woman, you are dating a woman who has watched too many movies written by socially awkward men who’d like to believe that this kind of woman exists and might kiss them. I’d want to grab the poor guy by his lapels or messenger bag and say: The bitch doesn’t really love chili dogs that much – no one loves chili dogs that much! And the Cool Girls are even more pathetic: They’re not even pretending to be the woman they want to be, they’re pretending to be the woman a man wants them to be. Oh, and if you’re not a Cool Girl, I beg you not to believe that your man doesn’t want the Cool Girl. It may be a slightly different version – maybe he’s a vegetarian, so Cool Girl loves seitan and is great with dogs; or maybe he’s a hipster artist, so Cool Girl is a tattooed, bespectacled nerd who loves comics. There are variations to the window dressing, but believe me, he wants Cool Girl, who is basically the girl who likes every fucking thing he likes and doesn’t ever complain. (How do you know you’re not Cool Girl? Because he says things like: “I like strong women.” If he says that to you, he will at some point fuck someone else. Because “I like strong women” is code for “I hate strong women.

And the wraith on the heart monitor looks pensively down at Gately from upside-down and asks does Gately remember the myriad thespian extras on for example his beloved ‘Cheers!,’ not the center-stage Sam and Carla and Nom, but the nameless patrons always at tables, filling out the bar’s crowd, concessions to realism, always relegated to back- and foreground; and always having utterly silent conversations: their faces would animate and mouths would move realistically, but without sound; only the name-stars at the bar itself could audibilize. The wraith says these fractional actors, human scenery, could be seen (but not heard) in most pieces of filmed entertainment. And Gately remembers them, the extras in all public scenes, especially like bar and restaurant scenes, or rather remembers how he doesn’t quite remember them, how it never struck his addled mind as in fact surreal that their mouths moved but nothing emerged, and what a miserable fucking bottom-rung job that must be for an actor, to be sort of human furniture, figurants the wraith says they’re called, these surreally mute background presences whose presence really revealed that the camera, like any eye, has a perceptual corner, a triage of who’s important enough to be seen and heard v. just seen. A term from ballet, originally, figurant, the wraith explains. The wraith pushes his glasses up in the vaguely sniveling way of a kid that’s just got slapped around on the playground and says he personally spent the vast bulk of his own former animate life as pretty much a figurant, furniture at the periphery of the very eyes closest to him, it turned out, and that it’s one heck of a crummy way to try to live. Gately, whose increasing self-pity leaves little room or patience for anybody else’s self-pity, tries to lift his left hand and wiggle his pinkie to indicate the world’s smallest viola playing the theme from The Sorrow and the Pity, but even moving his left arm makes him almost faint. And either the wraith is saying or Gately is realizing that you can’t appreciate the dramatic pathos of a figurant until you realize how completely trapped and encaged he is in his mute peripheral status, because like say for example if one of ‘Cheers!’’s bar’s figurants suddenly decided he couldn’t take it any more and stood up and started shouting and gesturing around wildly in a bid for attention and nonperipheral status on the show, Gately realizes, all that would happen is that one of the audibilizing ‘name’ stars of the show would bolt over from stage-center and apply restraints or the Heineken Maneuver or CPR, figuring the silent gesturing figurant was choking on a beer-nut or something, and that then the whole rest of that episode of ‘Cheers!’ would be about jokes about the name star’s life-saving heroics, or else his fuck-up in applying the Heineken Maneuver to somebody who wasn’t choking on a nut. No way for a figurant to win. No possible voice or focus for the encaged figurant.

French fry walks into a bar and says to the bartender, "Hey, could I get a beer please?" The bartender looks at him shaking his head and says, "No, we don't serve food here.

beer?" Descartes replies, "I think not" and poof! he vanishes." ♦◊♦◊♦◊♦ E-flat walks into a bar. The bartender says, "Sorry, we don't serve minors." ♦◊♦◊♦◊♦ Jesus Christ walks into a bar and says, "I'll just have a glass of water." ♦◊♦◊♦◊♦ Julius Caesar walks into a bar. "I'll have a martinus," he says. The bartender gives him a puzzled look and asks, "Don't you mean a 'martini'?" "Look," Caesar retorts, "If I wanted a double, I'd have asked for it!" ♦◊♦◊♦◊♦ The

other a Chihuahua. Passing a bar, the lab walker says, "Let's get a beer.

TV installer walks into a bar and orders a beer. The bartender says, "You'll be served sometime between

Club" replies the seal. ♦◊♦◊♦◊♦ A bartender walks into a church, a temple and a mosque. He has no idea how jokes work. ♦◊♦◊♦◊♦ A baseball walks into a bar, and the bartender throws it out. ♦◊♦◊♦◊♦ "A bear walks into a bar and says, "Bartender, I'd like a gin . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . and tonic." And the bartender says, "Sure, but what's with the big pause?" ♦◊♦◊♦◊♦ A cable TV installer walks into a bar and orders a beer. The bartender says, "You'll

in there," and the first guy says, "Watch." In he goes and orders a beer. "Sorry, you can't bring your dog in here," says the bartender.

bar, drinking beer. Jim turns to Bob and says, "You know, I'm tired of going through life without an education. Tomorrow, I think I'll go to the community college and sign up for some classes." The next day, Jim goes down to the college and meets the Dean of Admissions, who signs him up for the four basic classes: Math, English, History, and Logic. "Logic?" Jim says. "What's that?" The dean says, "I'll give you an example. Do you own a weed eater?" "Yeah." "Then logically speaking, because you own a weed eater, I presume you have a yard." "That's true, I do have a yard." "I'm not done," the dean says. "Because you have a yard, I think that

My phone buzzed in my back pocket and I made a face at him while answering. “Hi, Jack.” My heart did a little puppy dog shake. Jaime rolled his eyes and started gathering up our supplies. “Hey, sweetheart, staying out of trouble?” Jack’s smooth voice rolled through the line like a caress, strong, and sexy. Yes, I said sexy. I did a little mental fist pump because he’s my Jack. And damn if it didn’t feel good. “Absolutely not. In fact, I’m staring at trouble right now.” I know Jaime heard, but he ignored me. Grinning at my private joke, I rolled my head around, stretching my neck and back muscles. “Tell Runs with Beer I said hi.” Humor flashed in between the words.

cable TV installer walks into a bar and orders a beer. The bartender says, "You'll be served sometime between 7am and 2pm.

black lab and the other a Chihuahua. Passing a bar, the lab walker says, "Let's get a beer." The other guy retorts, "We can't take our dogs in there," and the first guy says, "Watch." In he goes and orders a beer. "Sorry, you can't bring your dog in here," says the bartender.

Thomas Edison walks into a bar and orders a beer. The bartender says, "Okay, I'll serve you a beer. Just don't get any ideas.

Two Texas farmers, Jim and Bob, are sitting at the bar, drinking beer. Jim turns to Bob and says, "You know, I'm tired of going through life without an education. Tomorrow, I think I'll go to the community college and sign up for some classes." The next day, Jim goes down to the college and meets the Dean of Admissions, who signs him up for the four basic classes: Math, English, History, and Logic. "Logic?" Jim says. "What's that?" The dean says, "I'll give you an example. Do you own a weed eater?" "Yeah." "Then logically speaking, because you own a weed eater, I presume you have a yard." "That's true, I do have a yard." "I'm not done," the dean says. "Because you have a yard, I think that logically speaking, you have a house." "Yes, I do have a house." "And because you have a house, I think that you might logically have a family." "Yes, I have a family." "So, because you have a family, then logically you must have a wife. And because you have a wife, then logic tells me you must be a heterosexual." "I am a heterosexual. That's amazing! You were able to find out all of that just because I have a weed eater." Excited to take the class, Jim shakes the dean's hand and leaves to go meet Bob at the bar. He tells Bob about his classes, and how he is signed up for Math, English, History, and Logic. "Logic?" Bob says, "What's that?" "I'll give you an example," says Jim. "Do you have a weed eater?" "No." "Then you're gay.

they agreed to start the shop together way back in college, so did his window to let her in on the joke. And breaking the news all these years later sure as hell wasn’t an option, not with her being his best friend and the closest thing he had to a sister now. No, the only way he’d tell her that the homers they discussed all the time were...errr, another kind of home run would be through a ‘Dear Quinn’ letter. A lovely posthumous one by certified mail. In the meantime, Luke was just going to have

crawfish. Nine guests were already gathered around, squeezing the highly seasoned meat out of the tails, sucking the juice out of the rest of the carcass and then going immediately for another, washing them down with beer and also eating the potatoes and corn on the cob that had been boiled along with the crawfish. It was one of the most ingrained communal rituals in New Orleans, everyone eating from the same horn of plenty, facing one another and talking, talking, talking as they ate, about music they had seen, city politics, the Saints game, which was still going inside, making jokes, making plans, making good-natured trouble.

For the second Monday in February, Sara had this joke: I was in the pub yesterday when I suddenly realized I desperately needed to fart.  The music was really, really loud, so I timed my farts with the beat.  After a couple of songs, I started to feel better.  I finished my beer and noticed everyone was staring at me.  Then I suddenly remembered that I was listening to my iPod.

One summer, a bachelor farmer hires a college student to help around the farm. Says the farmer, “Son, since you have done such a fine job here this summer, I am going to throw a party for you. You better be able to handle a few beers because there will be lotsa drinkin’ going on.” “Hey, I’m a college man—I can hold my liquor, believe you me. I should do just fine.” “There is also going to be a lot of fightin’, so I hope you can handle yourself with your fists.” “I have been working hard all summer and I think I’m in pretty good shape to defend myself.” “Okey-dokey, but did I mention that there will be lotsa sex?” “Thank God! I have been out here all summer without a date and I have been dying for some action. Say. . . what should I wear to this party?” “I don’t care. Its just gonna be me and you.

A guy walks into a bar and orders a drink. After a few more he needs to go to the can. He doesn’t want anyone to steal his drink so he puts a sign on it saying, “I spat in this beer, do not drink!” He returns a few minutes later to find another sign saying, “So did I!

A straight guy walks into a bar and instantly realizes it’s a gay bar. But what the hell, he figures, a drink is a drink. The bartender approaches him and asks, “What’s the name of your penis?” “Look, I’m not into any of that. All I want is a drink.” “I’m sorry, but I can’t serve you until you tell me the name of your penis. Mine, for instance, is called Nike, for the slogan ‘Just Do It.’ That guy down at the end of the bar calls his Snickers because ‘It really Satisfies.’” The customer looks dumbfounded so the bartender tells him he will give him a minute or two to think it over. So the guy says to the man sitting to his left, “Hey bud, what’s the name of your penis?” The man smiles and says, “Timex.” “Why Timex?” “‘Cause it takes a lickin’ and keeps on tickin’!’” A little shaken, the customer then turns to the guy on his right and asks, “So, what do you call your penis?” “Ford. ‘Have you driven a Ford, lately?’” Suddenly, a light comes into the customer’s eyes. He turns to the bartender and says, “Okay, the name of my penis is Secret. Now give me my beer.” The bartender begins to pour the beer, but he can’t help asking, “Why Secret?” “Because it’s STRONG ENOUGH FOR A MAN, BUT MADE FOR A WOMAN!

A man is sitting in a bar and he notices two lovely women across the way. He calls the bartender over and says, “I’d like to buy those two ladies a drink.” “It won’t do you any good,” replies the bartender. “It doesn’t matter, I want to buy those women a drink.” The bartender delivers the drinks to the ladies and they acknowledge the gift with a nod of their heads. About a half-hour later, the man approaches the women and says, “I’d like to buy you two another drink.” “It won’t do you any good,” they reply in tandem. “I don’t understand. What do you mean it won’t do me any good?” “We’re lesbians,” says the first lady. “Lesbians? What are lesbians?” “Lesbians,” repeats the second. “You know—we like to lick pussies.” Says the man, “Bartender, three beers for us lesbians.

A man went into a bar after work one day, and after a beer or two, he noticed a man passed out in the corner. An hour later, the fellow was still very drunk and incoherent, so, being a nice guy, the first man decided to take him home. He looked up the drunk’s name and address in his wallet, then started struggling to get the man out to his car. He tried to coax the man to walk, but to no avail—the man just could not stand up. Dragging, heaving, and finally carrying the man, our hero finally reached his car. He drove to the man’s house and then, again, lugged him to the front door. The Good Samaritan rang the bell, and the door was promptly opened by a pleasant-looking woman. “Oh. Thank you so much for bringing him home,” she said. “But, where’s his wheelchair?

So, what are you doing here?” She couldn’t help it if her tone sounded a little tired. This was becoming farcical. “I came to tell you that I--” he rushed to speak, then composed himself, looked around, and stepped closer to her so he did not need to raise his voice to be heard. The brunette leaned forward just a tad. “I apologize for having to tell you here, in this busy, dirty…this is not the scene I would set, but you must know that I…” He took off his cap and rubbed his hair ragged. “I’ve been working at Pembrook Park for nearly four years. All the women I see, week after week, they’re the same. Nearly from the first, that morning when we were alone in the park, I guessed that you might be different. You were sincere.” He reached for her hand. He seemed to gain confidence, his lips started to smile, and he looked at her as though he never wished to look away. Zing, she thought, out of habit mostly, because she wasn’t buying any of it. Martin groaned at the silliness. Nobley immediately stuck his cap back on and stepped back, and he seemed unsure if he’d been too forward, if he should still play by the rules. “I know you have no reason to believe me, but I wish you would. Last night in the library, I wanted to tell you how I felt. I should have. But I wasn’t sure how you…I let myself speak the same tired sort of proposal I used on everyone. You were right to reject me. It was a proper slap in the face. No one had ever said no before. You made me sit up and think. Well, I didn’t want to think much, at first. But after you left this morning, I asked myself, are you going to let her go just because you met her while acting a part?” Nobley paused as if waiting for the answer. “Oh, come on, Jane,” Martin said. “You’re not going to buy this from him.” “Don’t talk to me like we’re friends,” Jane said. “You…you were paid to kiss me! And it was a game, a joke on me, you disgusting lurch. You’ve got no right to call me Jane. I’m Miss Erstwhile to you.” “Don’t give me that,” Martin said. His patience was fraying. “All of Pembrook Park is one big drama, you’d have to be dense not to see that. You were acting too, just like the rest of us, having a fling on holiday, weren’t you? And it’s not as though kissing you was odious.” “Odious?” “I’m saying it wasn’t.” Martin paused and appeared to be putting back on his romancing-the-woman persona. “I enjoyed it, all of it. Well, except for the root beer. And if you’re going to write that article, you should know that I believe what we had was real.” The brunette sighed. Jane just rolled her eyes. “We had something real,” Nobley said, starting to sound a little desperate. “You must have felt it, seeping through the costumes and pretenses.” The brunette nodded. “Seeping through the pretenses? Listen to him, he’s still acting.” Martin turned to the brunette in search of an ally. “Do I detect any jealousy there, my flagpole-like friend?” Nobley said. “Still upset that you weren’t cast as a gentleman? You do make a very good gardener.” Martin took a swing. Nobley ducked and rammed into his body, pushing them both to the ground. The brunette squealed and bounced on the balls of her feet.

Just remember what happened the last time you went after an unavailable woman.” As if Mitch could forget. He spoke through gritted teeth. “It’s not like that.” Charlie shrugged. “It’s close enough to be cousins.” A hot poker of anger jabbed in his stomach. “It’s not remotely the same.” “You have a thing for unavailable women,” Charlie said, his expression as flat as his tone. “And Maddie, as cute as she is, fits the bill.” “I don’t have a thing for unavailable women,” Mitch insisted. Charlie’s mouth firmed into a hard line. “Do I need to give you a list?” A completely irrational, stubborn defiance had Mitch clenching his beer bottle hard enough to shatter. “I know who I’ve slept with, and this isn’t the same. Maddie’s not married.” “A technicality,” Charlie said. “I know what I’m doing.” What a joke. He didn’t have a clue. Charlie put his own bottle down and rested his hand on the counter. “The last time you knew what you were doing, you went down in a blaze.” The reminder was like an uppercut to the jaw. This wasn’t the same. Besides, he had nothing left to lose. He leveled Charlie with a hard-eyed stare. “Do you really want to start comparing fuck-ups?” Their mutual history covered a lot of sordid ground. “Hey,” Gracie said sharply before Charlie could answer. “Let’s not start rehashing the past. We like Maddie. We just don’t want to you to get hurt.” “Don’t be dramatic. It’s a couple days.” How much damage could she do? It wasn’t like he was getting attached. He just wanted to keep her for a little while. Was that so wrong? Sam sat forward, resting his elbows on the worn table. “Save your breath, he’s a goner.” “I am not,” Mitch said. “And why is this any of your business?” Charlie’s expression darkened, his mouth firming into a hard line. Mitch ground out, “Leave it. Alone.” Charlie gave him the look he used to intimidate criminals, and Mitch took a sip of beer with a laziness he didn’t even come close to feeling. “Stop it,” Gracie said, poking her friend-with-benefits in the ribs. “He’s being an idiot,” Charlie said, and the stubborn set of his jaw made Mitch want to take a swing at him. He put down the bottle and cracked his knuckles. Actually, violence sounded damned good. Gracie’s

We figured we would save you from having to turn down any more guys trying to buy you drinks,” Mark said, tossing a peanut into his mouth. “It’s the least you could do, since thanks to you I actually am under the influence now, Mr. there are people going to bed sober tonight all over the world.” “Hey, it’s not my problem you’re a lightweight,” he teased. “I didn’t force you to chug those two cups of beer, Animal.” “I can’t wait to hear what she has to say when she’s been drinking,” Adam joked. “Perhaps I’ll just sit here quietly and be entertained by your sparkling wit,” I said and started torturing a napkin in a way that it had done nothing to deserve.

Give a man a fish, and he will eat for a day. Teach a man to fish, and he will sit in a boat drinking beer all day. ***

> A skeleton walks into a bar, and orders a beer and a mop.

What's for dinner?" "Roast beef. I heard it was a woman's body buried on Hamilton Ranch and that her body had been mummified." "Roast beef and mummified should never be used in the same sentence," he joked as he headed toward the refrigerator for a beer.

Ever wondered as to what similarities do blondes and beer bottles have? Of course, I do. They are both empty from neck up.

It’s not fair, Mort. This love we lavish on our children. The protection. The guidance. It’s a perverse joke to think we can mold or shape the behaviors and thoughts of those we love.” Larry took a long pull from his own beer. “The twisted reality is we are powerless to make anyone do anything. To think anything. To love or respect anything. And yet we keep on trying, don’t we?

There are three ways to get something done: do it yourself, hire someone, or forbid your kids to do it. *** A neutron walks into a bar and asks, "How much for a beer?" The bartender replies, "For you? No charge." *** Teacher:

A pony trots into a bar and says, “Bartender, I’d like a beer.” The bartender says, “What? Speak up, I can’t hear you.” “A beer,” the pony replies, “I’d like a beer.” “What? I still can’t hear you,” the bartender says. “What’s with your voice?” “Nothing,” the pony says. “I’m just a little hoarse.

A golf club walks into a bar and orders a beer. The bartender looks at him and says, “Sorry, I can’t serve you. You’ll be driving later.

A man walks into a bar after a long day at work. As he drinks his beer he hears a quiet voice say, “Wow! You look great!” The man looks around but can’t see where the voice is coming from. A minute later he hears the same soft voice say, “You’re so handsome!” The man looks everywhere but still can’t see where the voice is coming from. As he sips his beer he hears the voice again. “What a stud you are!” The man is baffled and asks the bartender, “What the hell is going on?” “Don’t worry,” the bartender says, “it’s just the nuts. They’re complimentary.

A neutron walks into a bar and asks, "How much for a beer?" The bartender replies, "For you? No charge.

Before she sat, she grabbed the spiral-bound journal she’d been jotting down notes in since she’d first joked about her plan to Lisa, and set it on the table. “I wrote down a few things. You know, about myself? If you skim through it, it’ll help you pretend you’ve known me longer than two days.” Instead of waiting until they were done, he sat down his slice, picked up the notebook and opened it to a random page. “You’re not afraid of spiders, but you hate slugs? That’s relevant?” “It’s something you would know about me.” “You graduated from the University of New Hampshire. Your feet aren’t ticklish.” He chuckled and shook his head. “You actually come with an owner’s manual?” “You could call it that. And if you could write something up for me to look over, that would be great.” He shrugged and flipped through a few more pages of the journal. “I’m a guy. I like guy stuff. Steak. Football. Beer. Women.” “One woman, singular. At least for the next month, and then you can go back to your wild pluralizing ways.” She took a sip of her beer. “You think that’s all I need to know about you?” “That’s the important stuff. I could write it on a sticky note, if you want, along with my favorite sexual position. Which isn’t missionary, by the way.” It was right there on the tip of her tongue--then what is your favorite sexual position?--but she bit it back. The last thing she needed to know about a man she was going to share a bedroom with for a month was how he liked his sex. “I hardly think that’ll come up in conversation.” “It’s more relevant than slugs.” “Since you’ll be doing more gardening than having sex, not really.” “Wait a minute.” He stabbed a finger at one of the notes in the journal. “You can’t cook?” “Not well. Microwave directions help.” “I’d never marry a woman who can’t cook.” “I’d never marry the kind of man who’d never marry a woman who can’t cook, so it’s a good thing we’re just pretending.

The next morning, Steve took his boat out and saw what had happened. The big male had triggered the trap and was snared in the mesh--sort of. Even though the rectangular-shaped net was the biggest he had, the croc’s tail and back leg stuck out. But the black ghost had finally been caught. At Steve’s approach, the animal thrashed wildly, smashing apart mangrove trees on either side of the trap. Steve tried to top-jaw-rope the croc, but it was fighting too violently. Normally Chilli acted as a distraction, giving Steve the chance to secure the croc. But the dog wanted no part of this. She cowered on the floor of the dinghy, unwilling to face this monstrously large croc. Steve was truly on his own. He finally secured a top-jaw rope and tied the other end to a tree. With a massive “death roll”--a defensive maneuver in which the reptile spins its enormous body--the big croc smashed the tree flat and snapped it off. Steve tried again; the croc thrashed, growling and roaring in protest at the trapper in khaki, lunging again and again to tear Steve apart. Finally, the giant croc death-rolled so violently that he came off the bank and landed in the boat, which immediately sank. Chilli had jumped out and was swimming for shore as Steve worked against time. With the croc underwater, Steve lashed the croc, trap and all, in the dinghy. But moving the waterlogged boat and a ton of crocodile was simply too much. Steve sprinted several miles in the tropical heat to reach a cane farm, where he hoped to get help. The cane farmers were a bit hesitant to lend a hand, so Steve promised them a case of beer, and a deal was made. With a sturdy fishing boat secured to each side of Steve’s dinghy, they managed to tow it downriver where they could winch croc and boat onto dry land to get him into a crate. By this time, a crowd of spectators had gathered. When Steve told me the story of the capture, I got the sense that he felt sorry he had to catch the crocodile at all. “It seemed wrong to remove the king of the river,” Steve said. “That croc had lasted in his territory for decades. Here I was taking him out of it. The local people just seemed relieved, and a couple even joked about how many boots he’d make.” Steve was very clever to include the local people and soon won them over to see just how special this crocodile really was. Just as he was dragged into his crate, the old croc attempted a final act of defiance, a death roll that forced Steve to pin him again. “I whispered to him to calm him down,” Steve said. “What did you say to him?” I asked. “Please don’t die.” The black crocodile didn’t die. Steve brought him back to Beerwah, named him Acco, and gave him a beautiful big pond that Bob had prepared, with plenty of places to hide. We were in the Crocodile Environmental Park at the zoo when Steve first told me the story of Acco’s capture. I just had to revisit him after hearing his story. There he was, the black ghost himself, magnificently sunning on the bank of his billabong.

DARE Rap When you SMOKE It’s no JOKE Smoking turns lungs BLACK And causes you to HACK If you go ahead and SMOKE You are going to CROAK If you smoke POT Your brain will ROT When you drink BEER You can’t think CLEAR When you drink BOOZE Your brain will SNOOZE If you take a DRUG You turn into a SLUG When you get HIGH You might try to FLY And you will DIE So if you go to a PARTY Be a SMARTY! Listen to my VOICE Make the right CHOICE If you never drink and DRIVE You have a good chance of staying ALIVE. Shelly Merkes, age 12

E-13 No wonder it makes a man blush. No wonder a real true preacher look upon his congregation and try to lead them before the throne of God, and visit their homes and find them smoking cigarettes, telling dirty jokes to each other, entertaining in the back yard with beer parties, walking around on the streets, their young women, and middle age, and so forth, and even grandmother with little shorts on. Mother out on the street with a baby on one arm, dressed sexy enough to attract the attention of any bootlegger that walked the street, and calling themselves Christians? It would make any true man of God blush to bring such a person in the Presence of God. Right. ( "A Blushing Prophet" Preached on Sunday evening, 25th November 1956 at the Branham Tabernacle in Jeffersonville, Indiana, U.S.A. - See Paragraph E-13 ).

I’d been at the plant for three weeks when Curly invited me to his trailer for a drink. He lived just outside Hood River in a double-wide he shared with his mother, a woman he often spoke about. “I told Mother what you said about Dorothy’s mouth looking like a gunshot wound and, Lord, she just about bust a gut, she was laughing so hard. She is one funny lady, my mother. Nothing tickles her funny bone better than a knock-knock joke. You know any good sidesplitters?” Desperate as I was for company, I understood that I was clearly dealing with a loser. Management seemed the perfect career for a person like Curly. I could easily picture him in a short-sleeved shirt, the pocket lined with pens. Someone would ask him to check the time cards and he’d probably say something goofy like “Okey-dokey, artichokey.” I’d tried to straighten him out, but there’s only so much you can do for a person who thinks Auschwitz is a brand of beer. He

kissing, clawing at one another while a group of men watch and laugh, like these two women are an inside joke among the men. These images feel designed specifically for men who hate women. I gape at the computer as a paralyzing understanding washes over me: I was wrong. I was wrong I was wrong I am wrong. I thought the rules were different in my family, in this little world I’d made. I thought I was safe here. But the rules are the same as they’ve always been. I am back on the laundry room floor. I am back in line looking at a NO FAT CHICKS sign. I am sitting on the shoulders of a frat boy holding up my beer, singing,

Great QA requires a perverse and sometimes sadistic intuition for what will cause software to blow up, crash, or endlessly hang. Maxine once heard a joke: “A QA engineer walks into a bar. Orders a beer. Orders zero beers. Orders 999,999,999 beers. Orders a lizard. Orders negative one beer. Orders a ‘sfdeljknesv.

a joke: “A QA engineer walks into a bar. Orders a beer. Orders zero beers. Orders 999,999,999 beers. Orders a lizard. Orders negative one beer. Orders a ‘sfdeljknesv.

I hate drinking holidays that fall on weekends," he grumbled. "No joke. Stay off the roads, the sidewalks, and roofs might not be safe, either. If you ever wondered, do not, ever, add crème-de-menthe to beer to make it green. Never, ever,

Your brother is very cute,” she said against his lips. “I’m going to take him home and beat the shit out of him.” It made her giggle to hear that. “Would you two like to go for a ride tomorrow?” she asked. “We have another good riding horse. A beautiful Appaloosa named Shasta. All spotty and gentle.” “I don’t want him to go anywhere with us.” “Luke,” she scolded. “Seriously. I want him out of here. I have things to do with you.” He shrugged his shoulders. “Riding and beers and dinner and…stuff.” “You better be patient,” she said. “How patient?” he asked. She gave him a peck on the lips. “How long will Sean be here?” “Seriously, I’m going to kill him and hide the body.” “How long?” she demanded, though she smiled. “He says a few days. But he doesn’t know about his impending murder.” “How about tomorrow morning? After it warms up a little bit. Come to my house and we’ll ride along the river.” “Is that what you really want?” “I think it would be very neighborly of me.” He sighed. “All right. But don’t laugh at his jokes. It makes me crazy.

What should we do now?” She’d meant her question as a joke. After all, hadn’t they come here specifically to have sex? So she was surprised at his next words. “How about a game?” He climbed onto the bed and sprawled back into the mess of pillows against the carved wood headboard. “Like what?” A glance around the room revealed nothing. “I didn’t see any games. Do you think the lobby has some to borrow?” “That’s not the kind of game I was talking about.” “Oh?” Now she was curious. Did he mean something sexual? “Let’s play I never.” It took her a second, and then she remembered the game from high school. “The game where we say something we’ve never done and if you have done that something, you take a drink? Do we need beer?” “Yep. There’s a mini–bar in that cabinet.” She settled in across from him, crossing her legs. “Why do you want to play I never? Feeling nostalgic for high school?” “I want to know you better.” “You could just ask.” “Yeah, but this is more fun.” He grinned. “Planning on getting me drunk and having your wicked way with me?” “You read my mind.” He took a sip of beer and she watched his Adam’s apple bob as he swallowed. “Let’s start off slow,” he said. “I’ve never watched television.” They both took a drink. The wine she’d selected was dry and she felt it in her nose as she swallowed. “Okay, my turn. I’ve never spent the night in a hotel with anyone other than my parents.” He drank. “You have? When?” “Twice in high school, once a few months back.” They hadn’t been together a few months ago, but hearing he’d spent the night in a hotel with a woman felt like a kick in her gut. “Loren, Xander, and I went to London to rescue Adam.” “Oh.” She felt instantly happy again. “What about the other times?” “Prom. A whole bunch of us chipped in to get a room. They kicked us out by 3:00 a.m. Money well spent.” She laughed. “And the other?” “I was the equipment manager for our high school basketball team. We made it to a big championship that year. Man, the moms baked every day for weeks so we could have bake sales and earn enough to get three rooms for the twelve of us. Good times,” he said nostalgically. “Okay, my turn again. I’ve never taken the SAT.” She took a long gulp of wine. “How’d you do?” “Good enough to get into college.” “Nice. But you didn’t go.” “Nope. Got married.” She took a therapeutic drink of wine. His mention of his trip to London reminded her of another thing she’d never done. “I’ve never been on a plane,” she said. Unsurprisingly, he drank. Had she thought they’d taken a boat or car to London? “But it was only that one time to London,” he explained. “I’d never been on a plane before.” “Did you like it?” She’d always wondered what it would be like to sit in a tube that high off the ground. And it was petty of her, but she liked that Rowan had a similar amount of experience to her when it came to world travel. She’d have felt inadequate if he’d been all over the world. “I was so worried about Adam, it was hard to concentrate on the flight. I’d like to go try it again. With you if you’re willing.” “I’d love to. My parents were big into road trips, and Jack never took me anywhere. I want to see as much of the world as possible.” “Then let’s do it. We’ll save up and head out every chance we get.” They grinned at each other. “Okay, another one. Prepare to get your drink on,” he said with a devastating grin. “I’ve never had long hair.” She drank, and understood his game at once. “I’ve never been in the boy’s locker room. Rowan drank. “I’ve never worn a bra.” She laughed and nearly snorted wine up her nose. “I’ve never shaved my beard.” He drank. “I’ve never shaved my legs.” She drank.” I’ve never…” She took another sip for courage. The wine was clearly getting to her or she never would’ve said her next thing. “I’ve never had an erection.

But you can’t forget how easy it is to seduce people,” Ben said. “You see that everywhere, be it politics or religion. Even here in Europe, populists have been wildly successful despite the fact that this continent has a lot of experience with fanatical right- and left-wing ideology.” “Most people yearn for guidance,” Fritz said. “They want others to determine their lives for them, at least when all is said and done. In politics, the only people who are respected are so-called ‘strong’ leaders or politicians who show the way. It’s hardly surprising these people don’t have a basic understanding of democracy.” “That’s the problem,” said Ben. “People love to be told what they should do. And the worse they have it, the more grateful they are for a strong hand to push them.” “That said, we don’t exactly have it that bad here in Europe,” Hannes added. “Sure, there’s always some economic crisis and unemployment is rising, but still most people have it good enough that they can’t be enthralled by some dictator.” “Economic crises aren’t the only reason people turn to extremism,” Fritz said. “It’s also about personal crises. Look at the faces on the bus. How many people look happy?” “They’re probably just tired,” Ben joked. “But it’s true. There are plenty of studies which suggest that people in poorer countries are happier than we are. But when did you last hear politicians discuss the question of how we actually want to live? Emotional needs are basically irrelevant. It’s all about growth, recovery, optimization, and efficiency. If you work day after day in some office like a robot, there’s an inner emptiness that reality shows and dramas on television can no longer fill. Take a look at the nonsense the masses tune into night after night. You can’t consume real feelings, you have to live them.” “But that’s exactly what our society has forgotten how to do,” Fritz said. “You need someone to advise you on how to be ‘happy.’ At some schools, students can now choose Happiness as an elective. How sad is that? Have we become so far removed from real life that we have to introduce happiness as a school subject? How can society not understand something so fundamental?” “Now some charismatic, eloquent politician appears who knows exactly how to appeal to people,” Ben said. “Do you really think we would be completely immune to a politician’s temptations and promises today?” “Okay, okay!” Hannes laughed and raised his hands. “I give up. At the next neo-Nazi march, I’ll be standing in the front line of the counterdemonstration, I promise. But speaking of robots—I spent way too long spinning on the hamster wheel today. And Fritz has already given me a list of things to do tomorrow. It’s been lovely chatting, but I have to hit the hay.” “Man! But we’ve only just started planning the revolution,” Ben joked. “No, my young colleague’s right.” Fritz rose from his chair. “I just have to use the bathroom and then I’ll be on my way.” “It’s straight ahead.” Ben showed him the way and handed Hannes another beer. “Come on, you Goody Two-Shoes. Let’s have a

At our first rehearsal for team week, Robert and I were put on the same team. That first rehearsal was mostly for the pro dancers to figure out the choreography and the themes. Robert and I knew we couldn’t contribute much, so we hung back and joked around. Then someone told us that there was beer in the refrigerator in the rehearsal room. That wasn’t normal, and since we were just hanging around, Robert and I each decided to go grab one. The cameras stayed on us as we came back into the studio. Everyone looked up and we said, “This dancing stuff is hard!” Everyone laughed and then the serious people got back to work.

Beer nuts are a $1.75, but deer nut are under a buck!

In the gravedigger scene in act V, Hamlet looks upon an anonymous skull and jokes that even Alexander the Great decomposed into dust that could have been used to plug a beer barrel. But when Hamlet is shown this skull of his old friend Yorick, the prince becomes unspeakably sentimental and sad because he knew him.

Dusty beer bottles on both sides of the squishy steps vibrated and danced every time anyone descended down them. There were bottles on various ledges and within cases that were stacked like totem poles. The kids used a large wooden spool as a table and sat on seats torn from junk cars. They told jokes that everyone knew by heart, or stories that they could recite verbatim. The top of the spool was littered with ashtrays, full of snuffed butts, as well as empty beer bottles, or “dead soldiers.” At the bottom of the bottles, engorged cigarette butts resembled leeches, having been drowned in a lethal cocktail of backwash and saliva. Half the cigarettes inside the ashtrays had white filters, lovingly imprinted with Gail’s pink lipstick that she’d rubbed out in the ashtray. Of late, I was smoking more, sucking on the cigarettes that I bummed off the girls. Sucking in their essence.

What is this,” he joked, “are we all turning into girls? Want to paint each other’s toenails and braid our hair?” “Yeah,” Matt said sarcastically. “Let’s get out the beer and fart to the National Anthem.” Charlie

But when I landed in college, I noticed what looked like a gleaming. A goofy, doofy, curly-haired man with broad shoulders brushed by me in the hallway one day. He smelled like cinnamon. He had teddy-brown eyes and performed in the college’s improv group. He was the best one by far, made big gestures, made jokes from a place of kindness and whimsy, pulled ripples of laughter out of this cold, hard world. I used to sit in the audience and marvel. He seemed like an impossibility. It took years. Years of slowly befriending him through mutual friends. Years of calling into his late-night, freestyle-rap radio show, daring my tongue to try… to rhyme on the fly! I even joined the improv group. And eventually, one night I told him how I felt and instead of flinching away, as I had assumed he would, as the boys in the hallway had made it seem that he would, he kissed me. After graduating college, we moved in together, to a small one-bedroom apartment in Brooklyn with a red Formica table and a great front stoop. I finagled my way into a job helping produce a radio program all about science and wonder. He was continuing with comedy—stand-up and improv and writing—and working as a yellow-cab driver to support himself. We stayed up late into the night, sipping beers on the stoop, talking about our days, turning awkward moments and missteps into jokes. I felt like I had found the thing I had thought could never exist. Refuge. It smelled like cinnamon and its walls were made of bad puns and cheap rhymes, piling higher and higher against the chill of the world. My head became full of visions for the future. The TV shows we would write, the tree houses we would build, the way the grass would curl between our toes as we chased our kids through the yard. Until, seven years into it, I toppled the whole thing. Late one night on a beach five hundred miles away from him, possessed by moonlight and red wine and the smell of a bonfire, I reached out for the bouncing blond girl I had been trying not to eye all night. She was wet from swimming; she was prickled in goose bumps, hundreds of goose bumps, that I wanted to press flat with my tongue. She smiled as I placed my hand on her waist, as I touched my lips to her neck. The stars wrapped around us. Her steam became mine. When I told the curly-haired man what I had done, he told me it was over.

they might debark and, with the pleasantest sense of stepping down from the zone of the possible to the zone of the realized, stroll to a service station or fishing camp or grocery store, where they’d have a beer or fill the tank with spring water or lay in eggs and country butter and grits and slab bacon; then back to the camper, which they’d show off to the storekeeper, he ruminating a minute and: all I got to say is, don’t walk off and leave the keys in it—and so on in the complex Southern tactic of assaying a sort of running start, a joke before the joke, ten assumptions shared and a common stance of rhetoric and a whole shared set of special ironies and opposites. He was home. Even though he was hundreds of miles from home and had never been here and it was not even the same here—it was older and more decorous, more tended to and a dream with the past—he was home.