FLORISSANT, Mo. Sister Mary Joseph Arimathea is a veteran member of the Sisters of the Precious Blood, a religious order founded in Switzerland, but she is by no means a “bleeding heart” herself. “Sister Joe is the tough cop of the parochial school cafeteria beat,” says Jason Alfond, who covers American nuns for the crimestoppers.com website. “She hasn’t allowed a kid to throw away a fish stick in her four-decade career, and she’ll go straight to heaven–do not pass Go, no time in Purgatory–when she dies.”
“Nobody gets by Sister Joe!”
But the so-called “Godmother” of clean-plate enforcement isn’t thinking about retirement, much less death, quite yet as a new challenge has energized her in what should be the twilight of her working days. “When I see what’s happening with all that Bud Light, it makes me sick–even though I can’t stand beer,” she tells this reporter.
The 67-year-old nun is referring to protests by drinkers of the popular beer in response to a marketing campaign that featured Dylan Mulvaney, a transexual (male to female) Internet personality. Outraged customers have thrown cases of the lager into dumpsters and crushed them under bulldozers, which Sister Arimathea views as a tragic waste of low calorie malt beverages.
Makes “New Coke” look like a bright idea.
“There are young men and women going to bed sober all around the world,” she says as she fishes a “suitcase” of the formerly-popular brew out of a trashcan in this suburb of St. Louis. “I’m going to get this on a plane to a third-world country where people can appreciate fermented swill despite their raging homophobia.”
Heinerscheid: “I’m not stupid, you’re stupid–see?”
The failed marketing campaign that tried to grow sales of the beer by pitching beyond its largely frat-boy demographic was the brainchild of Anheuser-Busch Vice President Alissa Heinerscheid, who denies that it was a bone-headed move based on her impressive resume. “She’s a graduate of Harvard and The Wharton School,” says Todd Afletz, author of “Guerrilla Marketing. “There’s no way she’ll be admitting she was wrong.”
Bud Light was, before the link to Mulvaney, the nation’s best-selling premium light lager, according to commercial “puffing” on its manufacturer’s web site. “Not sure why they put all those adjectives in there,” says Consumer News brand analyst Morey Jordain. “I mean, if you want to narrow it down that far, I’m the best-looking man in America currently wearing the pair of shoes on my feet.”
“Get back on your stool and finish that beer!”
Friday night finds “Sister Joe” occupying a spot at the end of the bar at Jimmy’s Lounge here, where she nurses an orange juice. She watches mildly-inebriated males make a show of their distaste for the now-scorned beer by buying “long neck” bottles at a bargain “happy hour” price, then expressing their scorn by pouring the contents into the bartender’s sink.
“Here’s what I think of this tranny beer!” says Jason Oehrke, a criminal justice major at nearby Ozzie Smith Junior College, as he reaches over the bar.
“Hold on there sonny boy,” the nun says, springing into action. “You know waste is a mortal sin–right?”
The young man is taken aback by the nun’s authoritative tone, which recalls his elementary school days at Our Lady of Perpetual Airplane Noise in East Boston, Massachusetts. “Well, yeah, kinda. But isn’t it a sin for a guy to dress up like a woman and make a lot of endorsement money that should have gone to real chicks instead?”
“There’s nothing in the Baltimore Catechism about light beer.”
It’s the nun’s turn to be puzzled, and she cocks her head to one side as she rummages through the reams of Catholic dogma in her brain. “Hmm–this is tougher than the three-persons-in-one-God thing.”
“So I can go ahead and I won’t burn in hell?” Oehrke asks slily.
The nun looks him up and down and glances at his friends, who are eyeing the females in the bar with looks of horndog interest. “My guess is you’re going to anyway,” she says, “so one beer isn’t going to make any difference.”
She’s scary enough to make me drink beer–and I hate beer.