https://youtu.be/-2zUpgcdDA0

You’re playing the lucrative 6 p.m. set at the local strip mall, at a used CD store called Orbit Music. Nickelback is releasing an album the same day, so the store expects heavy traffic. Its right next to Plato’s Closet so you know damn well the place is going to be crawling with some middling to fair honeys.  The band you’re in happens to be an Alien Ant Farm cover band that plays exclusively B-sides, which combined with the Affliction slouch fit beanie, almost guarantees you’re landing a bumper crop of semi-decent strange. The only other dude at the show is the pear shaped, balding 40 year old man who franchised a Chuck E. Cheese next door.

Everything is going according to plan; there are about 12 people who attend the show, which is four more than you’re last show. Yep…smooth sailing, until all of the sudden a really sophisticated looking girl in Ed Hardy asks you what you’re drinking. What.the.fuck? How are you supposed to answer a question like that when you’re in a goddamn Alien Ant Farm cover band?! Panic ensues; you’re frozen at the plate, racking your brain for an acceptable alcohol to blurt out…

“Redd’s…Strawberry…Ale” comes pouring out of your mouth like one prolonged, painful and completely solid bowel movement. You instantly soil yourself. You try and grab the words as they come out and shove them furiously back down your throat, into the twisted depths where they belong…but the damage has been done. Why the hell couldn’t you even spit out Michelob Ultra?! Even a fucking Michelob Ultra wouldn’t have been as suspicious as a Redd’s Strawberry Ale order.  As the band sets up to tease Smooth Criminal for the thirteenth time, you sit dejected in your own urine. You see the girl buying the Chuck E. Cheese owner a glass of earthy red…

Reds Strawberry Ale: To abstinence