Einstein's Theory of Awkwardity

For most of my life I was THAT kid.  Whenever my Mom brought me to play-dates, the other moms would grab their children and whisper among themselves," Who brought the awkward kid? Is it communicable? Will my baby catch it if they play together?"  And while no one ever admitted it, I suspect that most of those moms took their kids to the doctors afterwards to have them tested for ADD, just in case it was contagious.

As I grew up, I ascertained that you are only the awkward kid if there is not someone who is more awkward than you at any location (Einstein's theory of awkwardity). That was when I learned to bring someone more awkward than me anytime I went to a party. Usually, this person had to be really into horses or only talk about Jello.

These are some of my siblings. We go many places together.

Recently, upon taking up a job at a brewery, I discovered that bringing a pack of beer somewhere has the same mitigating effects that bringing an awkward person places does. Cool people bring beer, so when I bring beer, I am all of a sudden a cool person.  This impression can last up to five minutes, usually until I start talking.  That was the case at the Super Bowl party I attended this weekend.

Of course I brought Oak Barrel Stout, because it is not only my favorite, but I think it should be everyone else's favorite as well.  And like any good employee, I made sure to be standing near the beer table in case anyone had any questions about it (also to make sure that it was the first beer that we ran out of...yeah. (I had to end that sentence with another word, otherwise it would have ended in a preposition)).

Fortunately, my sister was also at this party.  Now, if you don't know my relationship with my sister, it is important that you know she is like my manager.  Anytime we go anywhere, she negotiates the stupid things that I do to make sure that I don't get ripped off (one time someone tried to get me to eat a stick of butter for $1.  She told him that I would only eat 3 tablespoons for $1). In exchange, on a successful night, I will use that money to buy her a sandwich.  She also warns people.  On Super Bowl night, she was preemptively warning people, before they got close to the beer table, not to ask me about beer.

Finally, someone walked up to me and asked me why I was being awkward by the beer table.  It gave me a nice opening to talk about how awesome Oak Barrel Stout was, and in two seconds, I convinced them to try a bottle.  They then opened the bottle and began to drink out of it.

Now, if I have three pet peeves (I actually have 37),  number three is people drinking good beer out of the bottle.  That is a waste of a good beer.  Science shows that up to 90%(!) of taste is as a result of smell.  If you are drinking out of a bottle, you are missing out on 90% of that taste.  Craft beer should always be consumed out of a glass.  You wouldn't drink wine out of the bottle -- why would you do that with beer?

Within two seconds (total time to convince that person to drink the beer + total reaction time = 4 seconds),  I was nerding out on their consumption of beer and asking them nicely to put it in a glass, otherwise they would be missing out on the oak and vanilla notes in Oak Barrel.   They saw the error of their ways, promised never to do it again, and complied.  Oak Barrel Stout was the only beer that we ran out of at the party, and EVERYONE said that they would be drinking more of it in the future.

Shortly thereafter, my sister told me I was being a tool, and then a random dude came up to me and told me that he heard I would fight anyone for a dollar.  All in all, it was a pretty good Super Bowl.