March Challenge|Keeley Schroder|
March Madness Challenge: Day 13: Guinness… Love it or leave it?
Day 13: Black Magic.
I first tasted Guiness when I was nine years old. Dad said I needed more iron. Dad felt the iron around his head when mum found out! It was too late; I was hooked by the dark magic.
However, my son, that’s the handsome beast to the right of me in the photo, tasted his first of this Irish brew in Dublin, where else? as a 20-year-old. Naturally, a Guiness virgin needs to know stuff about the journey he’s about to embark on.
“Remember, lad. This is a journey, and its the journey as a whole one must consider before making your mind up about the magic.”
“It’s a beer, dad. I’ve been drinking two years, I have the taste for it,” he says. (He’ll be reading this, and then he’ll deny it, and then he’ll say, well it was kind of like that.)
It was exactly like this. The boy is brilliant in everything he does, I swear. But when it comes to beer, he’s a complete asshole.
“Look, laddie, I know you don’t like to listen to the ole man, but hear this will ye, and why is ye raisin them eyebrows, laddybuck?”
“Coz my Guiness is sitting on the bar, dad, and I’m thirsty as…”
“Look, ye may think you’re a grown man, and you’re tall enough, but that’s it. You’re a child of the Guiness, and like all children it doesn’t come without a bit of teachin’, now shut your damn cakehole and be listenin’, lad. That Guiness you see sitting there, it has a long history, which I’m not going to bore you with, except to say this. Never let man or woman fill ye glass with the black magic in under five minutes. Every bar person knowing their job will ne’er pour a Guinness in less,” I tell him.
“Dad, you’ve taught me a hundred times, I’ve learned it backward, forward, up, down, and round about, dad. Can we drink?”
“Nay lad, we cannae, because the time has come… all the teach is about this moment. Now do ye damned ears a favour, and open’em. This’ere Guinness is no ordinary Guiness, there is no such thing, I’ll be warnin’ ye. Each is an Indvidual. Now, take a looonnngg look at ye black magic, son. Picture it, this one, picture it so you’ll never forget ye’s first one. Now, and ye be listenin’ careful, like, the first will taste like sipping a beer that was made from the wool of a wet sheep, I’ll be givin’ ye that, but the second, oh, the second, young’un, that’ll be like tasting the smoldering peat from the boglands, and you’ll take it in, but the third, mind, ah laddie, brace yeself for magic, for that third Guiness, it’ll be a field of bloomin’ heather,” I explain to a young man who dunnae know his taste buds, from his deodorant.
“Bloomin’ heather, dad?”
“Aye, laddie, it’s a journey ye see.”
“And the fourth, what will that be?” He said, wearing that grin kids wear when they think their old man ain’t got an answer.
“Aha, ye see, you youngin’s you think you’re smart… ye’s a dope, lad. The fourth, and ever after, if you follow the rules, and never be poured a quickie, will be the ruby-black velvet beverage with the creamy, white head with a slightly bitter, bready bite to it.”
“Okay, dad. Can we taste it now?”
“Not until ye’s paid for’em laddie.”
I think it is a wonder and a great compliment to Keeley Schroder to see new writers joining in and must update my list. If you’re not on it, yet, I’m working on it. Welcome.
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Participants:
Adrienne Beaumont, Autistic Widower (“AJ”), Brett Jenae Tomlin, The Sturg, Vidya Sury, Collecting Smiles, Richard Bailey, Marilyn Flower, Trisha Faye, Karen Schwartz, NancyO, Robert G. Longpré — [he/him] — Canadian métis, Katie Michaelson, Bernie Pullen, Laure Dorsemaine, Debika Kumari, Michelle Jimerson Morris, redkitewrites, Celia McKinley, Charisse Tyson, Julie KingGood, Amy Frances, Julia A. Keirns, Ravyne Hawke, Pamela Oglesby, Toni the Talker, Cathy Cremer, Tina, Kayla Tackett, Pat Romito LaPointe, C Cap1, Anna Itzel Cazita, K., Brandon, Misty Rae, Karen Hoffman, Deb Palmer, Susie Winfield, Vincent Pisano, Paari, Marlene Samuels, Ellen Baker, Jenny Lane,
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