“Oh, what a decision…what shall I choose to drink?” I wondered to myself as the waitress stood by with pen in hand waiting for my order. Usually, I revert to my norm, a glass of vino tinto, when I’m asked this question, but it was a warm late-spring day and I had just finished a long hike with a meetup group. Wine didn’t feel like the most refreshing option to quench my parched palate.
Approximately eight of us, me being the only female, had decided to stop at the Six Mile Pub in Victoria to continue socializing. I considered ordering a raspberry cider, but I didn’t have an appetite for ‘sweet’. Then my mind’s eye scrolled through my memory bank of proven tasty alcoholic beverages and I thought, “Hmmm…maybe a lime margarita or a Long Island ice tea would be nice.”
I retracted the thought after scanning the testosterone-dominated table, “Nah, too fancy for this day.” Not only that, but those types of drinks are expensive anyways. Something dry, yet sparking and crisp on my tongue sounded much more appealing. There was always beer. “Well, that’s brave of me,” I thought, considering my brief relationship with it so many years ago.
It wasn’t long ago that the thought of ingesting the bitter-tasting drink made my throat clench and my stomach shift into an unsettling gurgle like a bubbling cauldron of witches brew. I suppose after twenty-eight years I should just get over it. It’s amazing to me how one terrible experience that happened so long ago still has the power to instantly reproduce the same nauseating feeling. It’s like that one thing, regardless of whether it really was the culprit, becomes the “bad guy” responsible for creating such immense suffering. Our body’s natural defense mechanism, or survival instinct, kicks in to repel the suspected “bad guy” next time it appears in front of us.
It’s like the time I came down with the stomach flu when I was approximately eight years old. Earlier that evening at suppertime, my taste buds were shocked to come into contact with the new sugary glaze my mother had brushed over my steamed carrots instead of the usual sprinkling of salt. I couldn’t finish the carrots and that night my stomach continuously lurched and spewed what remained of them in my belly all over my bed. For many years afterwards, even though the carrots were not really the culprit, I wouldn’t touch one unless it was raw.
So I suppose it is the same with beer although it has taken me much longer to down one of those again than a cooked carrot. One night when I was approximately 18 years old, although I wasn’t keen on the taste, I ingested beer among other alcoholic beverages. My young mind, overtaken by my alcohol-induced inhibitions, had me downing drinks from Southern Comfort mixed with Coca Cola to peach and Rockaberry ciders. Ugh! The last thing I remember that night was lying on the sidewalk heaving the nasty brew onto the grass.
For the most part since then I haven’t been able to stomach any of these drinks. The only one that has since returned to take another splash down my throat (and not up it) is beer, but only a certain kind of beer. No dark heavy lager beers are allowed to make that journey. Nope! Only light beer, specifically Corona with a fresh lime. I’ve actually grown to really enjoy it.
So when the waitress asked me what I wanted to order, I responded with, “A Corona with a lime please.” Surprisingly to me, each one of the men seated around the table followed suit and ordered one as well. It struck me as funny since many men I know don’t choose a light beer when asked this same question. Jokingly, I accused them all of being copy-cats, however in my mind, I’ve remained curious as to why the Corona.
And so this is what inspired “The Corona Project”. My friend, Erik, and I decided it would be interesting to write about our different perspectives of the same thing. This scenario at the pub was the first thing that entered my mind.
As with any experiment, there should be a controlled variable, dependent variable and an independent variable. In this case the controlled variable is the fact that we were both at the same place at the same time and were asked the same question by the waitress. The dependent variable (what we observe) would be our thought process at the pub which led us to order a Corona. As for the independent variable (what we change) there isn’t really one, since we are observing what has already taken place, unless our thoughts at the time of writing our perspectives would qualify. I’m not sure. Science experiments are not my forte!
So today is the day that I am going to find out what was going through Erik’s mind when he also ordered a Corona. We meet at Chapters on Yates Street in downtown Victoria tonight, August 28th, 2015, at 8:00 p.m. to share! I’m excited!
See The Corona Project – Part 2 and Erik’s story.
