Imagine how panicked you would be while standing in line at the Luca checkout counter as the girl behind the register notes with surprise that you are back, again, to buy yet more beer and as you hoist the hefty bottle of generic CBA bere blonda onto the counter you worry less about what she thinks of your purchasing decision than you do about the sudden knowledge this beer is made by IMEX, private labeller for Carrefour! The horror! The flashbacks! The nausea!

“Al ceva?”

“Sure, babe, gimme a box of condoms, one of those porn mags, a packet of Lucky Strike, and… and some breathmints.”

Presuming she didn’t speak Engleza, she’d probably give you a really funny look and finally say, “Doriţi un packet de Lucky?”

“Nu, glumesc.” No reaction. “Nu vreau. Atut.”

She probably couldn’t wait to get rid of you, stranger in a strange land. So, you’d walk home with too many bottles pulling down the stretched handles on your over used plastic bag that some greedy store owner charged you 10,000 lei vechi for, wondering exactly how close you’ll make it before it tears.

Don’t they sell any cloth bags that don’t break? Why are they charging you such a high price for a cheap plastic bag which you need in order for them to profit from your patronage and for which they only pay about 500 lei or less? Post-communist mentality: gouge everyone!

CBA. Carrefour bere again? You’re not even sure you want to go home and open this puppy, but it’s your duty as the ever stoic adventurer. Maybe that’s not a good description. Ah, well, it’s a working definition.

Just as the game was about to get underway, emergency rescue workers had to be rushed to the scene as Spammy was refusing to referree and had created a somewhat controversial demonstration against tasting any more Hiproma-style beer.

Once cut down, Spammy went on a bit of a tirade threatening to boycott the entire Campionatul Mondial de Bere rather than be involved with any more of Hiproma’s foul concoction misleadingly labelled as beer. After a lengthy period of tense negotiations (including demands for event-sponsored life insurance), our perky pink pig was softly eased into the idea of trying a few sips.

And so it was that CBA got the ball first, uneasily moving down the field to the jeers and insults of the snickering crowd. Amazingly, Luca’s brand of beer did not jumble things up and knock the checkered sphere into its own goal. Broadcasters even indicated that the stuff was nearly drinkable. Almost.

Spammy decided to call his inside connections in the SRI’s shadier bureaus and set up an espionage ring outside of IMEX. How in the world could these guys in Satu Mare make a relatively beer-like drink for Luca’s private label reselling, while at the same time bottling rat poison for Carrefour? The mystery needs answering. Tap the phones. Keylog the computers. Open the mail. Whatever it takes!

Otherwise, we’d be forced to conclude that it’s similar to making prison wine where one version turns out slightly drinkable whereas the other one is best used for engine degreasing.

Well, yeah, so Spammy was kind of distracted with these conversations, but ESPN highlights of Match 10 showed that Skol ended up scoring a goal based on taste. Halftime show was great party music from Manu Chao. Neither team was able to muster pricing or ABV dominance. Things ended peacefully and spectators had a relaxed good time involving some wild dancing.

Final score: CBA 0 – Skol 1

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 21st, 2006 at 5:01 pm and is filed under Mondial Bere '06. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.