70th and El Cajon is the major intersection by my apartment. So when I want to go buy some beer I go to Duke's Drive-In Liquor. When I first started buying from them I used to get twelve packs of Milwaukee's Best also known affectionately as The Beast.. I know it's not the best, but the price was right at $5.99. After about a year they stopped carrying Milwaukee's Best and instead, stocked their fridge with Keystone. Keystone is not much worse than the Beast so I didn't complain. Several months later the price went up to $6.99 and that is when I really started to miss the old Beast. And so my campaign began. I asked Stephan, the owner, what happened to my favorite cheap beer and he said he didn't order it any more. I asked him to get it for me and he said that he would think about it. From then on it was an ongoing conversation between us. It was kind of a little joke, and I pretty much gave up on ever getting the Beast back, but in the back of my head I dared to dream that one day it would be back on the shelf. I even went so far as to promise Stephan that I would buy all the Beast he stocked because he was worried that it wouldn't sell.
Finally, yesterday, my big moment arrived. I went to Duke's Drive-In Liquor and went to get my twelve pack of beer and there it was, Milwaukee's Best, the Beast. But things were not all good. My favorite finest cheapest beer was labelled at $8.49. What the !@#$ kind of crap is that? On the box it said Milwaukee's Best Premium, maybe old Stephan thought that was enough to merit a price change. Or maybe he thought he could get away with this screw job because it is a new product in his store. Either way I am quite pissed. And the icing on the cake is that he doesn't even carry Keystone anymore, he still has Keystone light, but any connoisseur knows that doesn't really count. So now my cheapest option has gone from $6.99 to $8.49 for a damn twelve pack of crummy beer.
I didn't get a raise last week and I don't recall any recent changes in the economy. So I don't know why old Stephan at Duke's Drive-In Liquor thinks he can get away with this. I guess it's time to drag myself over to Miles Liquor a block and a half away. Until yesterday I never quite understood the old expression, "Be careful what you wish for, because you might just get it" but now I get it, and it is a real pisser. If you're out there Stephan of Duke's Liquor, have a heart, don't be so cold, you can drop the tough guy act. We both know that Milwaukee's Best Premium is the same old cheap ass beer. Bring down the price Stephan, you don't run a freaking gas station, there is no need for such shockingly abusive price gouging. Look for me next week in front of Duke's on El Cajon, I'll be the one picketing in protest of this uproarious injustice.
"Hey hey, ho ho, this high priced beer has got to go!"
