by Rob Perez

Ultra

In general, my life is pretty good. The family is healthy. The work is satisfying. The Wife, while she didn’t read the last column, promises to read the next.

And yet my life isn’t perfect. You see, there’s this thing. It’s just a little thing. But it’s still a thing. And I don’t really know what to do about it. Someone, presumably a guest, brought some beer. Nothing wrong with that. Always nice to show up with something, anything. Even beer. I don’t know, but apparently, they didn’t finish it.

And now, every time I open the fridge, staring back at me is One Michelob Ultra.

I know, I know. It’s only a beer. To some people, one slender can of low-calorie beer in a perfectly normal fridge doesn’t even rise to the level of “problem.” I mean, it’s only 95 calories. Just 2.6 carbs. A mere twelve ounces. On paper, it shouldn’t matter.

And yet…

I can tell you with absolute certainty that this thin, metallic cylinder is, for me, a very real problem.

I have no idea what to do with the thing.

I’m not really a beer guy. Once a year, at an Irish pub, I’ll order a Guinness on draft and think of their (old?) slogan: Guinness is good for you. Concise. Alliterative. Disingenuous.

On an average night, I might start with a gin martini, slightly dirty, a couple of olives. A couple of olives on the side for the 7-year-old. Then red wine with dinner. If it’s an occasion, perhaps a postprandial. You see, I don’t drink beer because—well—I don’t really like beer.

Which makes the One Michelob Ultra on my top shelf something other than a beer; it’s a ready-made, a Duchamp, an aluminum can elevated by circumstance into an installation. My fridge is the gallery. Admission is free. The exhibit might be permanent.

I immediately offer this One Michelob Ultra to everyone who enters my house. I sound a little desperate because, well, I am. Would you care for One Michelob Ultra? I have it right here. It’s cold. Only 95 calories. I’m told it’s quite smooth.

My guests, discerning people, decline without hesitation. So the beer remains. There. Not just in the fridge. In my psyche.

Even the name tortures me. Ultra. Is it a noun? An adverb? I think it’s a prefix. In Latin “ultra” means beyond. But beyond what? Beyond What?!

I open my fridge and I feel like The Underground Man from Dostoevsky’s Notes from the Underground. The Michelob Ultra is a petty gripe and an existential threat at the same time. I obsess. I fixate. I suffer. And yet I savor the suffering. My self-awareness only makes it worse.

Naysayers suggest: Come, come, man! Just drink it! I cannot. I will not. This thing is not mine. The thing is not for me. Perhaps the thing is for another. I know not who.

Naysayers persist: Not that hard! Just pour it out?! I cannot. I will not. The gods have sent me a Buddhist koan in the form of a single, slender, aluminum, low-calorie can. What is the sound of One Michelob Ultra, unopened?

Joseph Campbell would remind me this One Michelob Ultra is more than a beverage. It’s The Call to Adventure. To drink it would be to refuse the call. To pour it out, to abandon the quest. No. The hero—me—must shoulder the burden. I must cross the threshold (of the fridge) again and again. I must endure The Ordeal (only 95 calories!). Only then, through suffering and persistence, and finally facing this One Michelob Ultra, will I discover The Elixir: not refreshment, not relief, but an eternal truth. Only then will I finally understand that, in the end, some journeys last a lifetime.