Beer may protect brain cells and slow neurological disorders, such as Alzheimer’s.
ExperienceLife.com
It had been a long, tough slog, beginning with “Super Wild Card Weekend.” I didn’t know there were that many wild cards in a deck, I thought it was just one-eyed Jacks, but no; there was also deuces, so you could have up to six wild card games in three days. Just the thought of it made me woozy, so I took another sip of Bud Light and, with what strength I had left, I raised the remote, pointed it at the television, and switched to the Bruins game–and the Celtics game–trying to keep myself from going gently into that good night of forget fullness and . . . what’s the other thing you lose when you get Alzheimer’s Disease? I couldn’t remember, so closed my eyes and tried to block out the endless round of beer, razor blade, and snow tire commercials that assaulted me from the screen.
“You . . . okay?” a voice called softly to me. It was my wife–my angel.
“Hi,” I muttered, barely able to draw a breath what with the weight of all the alcohol I’d downed.
“You coming to bed soon?” she asked, a troubled look on her face.
“I’m trying”–I halted to collect my thoughts–”to hit for the cycle. Football, basketball, hockey . . .”
“There’s no baseball on now,” she said, her forehead furrowed like a freshly-plowed field.
“Yes but there’s the ‘Hot Stove League,’” I said.
“What’s that?”
“Trade talk, free agents. Hope springs eternal when you’re not trying to figure out whether the next pitch you see will be a 100-mile-per-hour fastball or a knee-buckling change-up.”
She pressed her finger to my lips in an unspoken attempt to force me to conserve my energy. It was a good thing, because a belch rumbled up my alimentary canal and would have sprayed beer perfume in her face if she hadn’t.
“Are you feeling any better?” she asked.
“Better than my last exam, when I showed no signs of Alzheimer’s?”
“Um-hmm . . .”
“Well, sure, yeah–although you can never let your guard down.”
“I know–I just–I worry about you.”
“Thanks.” We kissed and gazed into each other’s eyes. I felt as if I had my own personal Florence Nightingale.
“How long,” my wife began, as she watched Kansas City call a time out. “How long does the last fourteen seconds of a football game take?”
“Usually about half an hour,” I said. “When you get twenty-two guys together in one spot with an average weight of 300 pounds, it tends to bend the space-time continuum.”
I grimaced in pain and grabbed my side.
“What’s the matter?” my wife asked.
“It’s those crappy natural almonds you bought at Whole Foods.”
“I wasn’t going to, but the store mime talked me into it.”
“You . . . you need to stick to Honey Roast peanuts.”
“Sometimes they’re out of them . . .”
“In that case, get Beer Nuts. It’s the generic drug equivalent.”
“I’ll check in the kitchen.” She scurried off to our pantry, and after a moment came back with some Planter’s Dry Roasted Peanuts.
“Thanks. This will tide me over until the morning.”
My wife looked down at me as if I were one of our kids suffering from the flu. “We’ll get through this,” she said, squeezing my hand tightly.
“With you by my side, and a cold frosty can of Ballantine Ale in my hand, anything is possible.”