Ksssh…

Ksssh…

It’s a pretty good sound to accompany a pretty good feeling.

The bottle opener on the wall is constant, immobile, physical part of my apartment.

The beer in the fridge is temporary, transitory, and part of my life.

All the different brands, flavors, and types sometimes are forgettable but the routine of opening that bottle of beer is ingrained in my memory.

I reach down and grab a beer from my mostly empty fridge, which is either truly pitiful or truly youthful. It takes two steps to cross the tiny kitchen, one swing of my arm to hook the bottle cap’s righteous ridges under the immaculately designed silver arch. Just the slightest bit of pressure and Ksssh….the bottle cap drops.

Sometimes it falls right into the jar below, often times I have to pick it up and toss it in, another flick of the wrist in just the right direction. Today, I just let it fall. I’m moving today and everything has to get picked up in the end.

Instinctively the bottle smoothly rises from the opener at waist height to head height, as my lips eagerly accept the offering. It’s cold, hopefully. It’s flavorful, mostly. And it’s refreshing, nearly always.

Fridge. Beer. Opener. Drink.

In those four steps I can be like almost anybody. I am the beer bellied, sweat stained man going for another Bud he more than doesn’t need. I am the funky hippy chick with my organic brew and my favorite bottle cap tied into my dreads. I am the guy in the commercial, the generic looking one with lots of friends and the best looking beer in the world, I even come with my own sound effects. I am also me, comfortable drinking alone in my own apartment and living up to my twenty-something reputation.

When I take my first sip, I hold the bottle with such authority. We’re good friends and I’ve just slung my arm around his shoulder, this is how its meant to be. Just us sharing in the refreshment.

I lower the bottle and step through the doorway, and just like that, the spell is broken.

Once I step through the doorway I’m back in my room and trying to remember what I was going to do after I grabbed a beer. The events of that day and the plans of the coming week wash over me. Now this beer has become different than all those other beers. Timing, season, and context now define it, sometimes more so than taste and label.

But for a moment I’m just a person, cracking open a brewsky, taking a pause and enjoying the refreshment life has to offer.

Ksssh….