Hey-o! Couldn’t help but notice your eyes wandering around the drinks station looking for something to open your bottle of Modelo. And right now you’re probably asking yourself, “Does the friendly lurker leaning against the railing of this pontoon boat have a bottle opener on him?”
You bet I do. I’ve got the classic keychain model right here. Have at it, dude.
Of course, bottle openers are just one of my many interests. I’m happy to chat about such topics as cans versus bottles, whether beer should be in cans versus bottles, which kinds of beers belong in cans versus which kinds of beers belong in bottles, and which do I prefer: cans or bottles? It may surprise you to learn I lean toward bottles.
Anyway, we can discuss just about anything bottle-adjacent.
Can you believe, here we are in the middle of the water on this pontoon boat, and nobody thought to bring a bottle opener? Well, I’m not nobody! I’m a bit of a superhero, if you think about it.
I’ve got all sorts of bottle openers on me at all times. There's the bottle opener in the arm of my sunglasses which requires me to remove them so you can see my vacant, shallow gaze as I engage you in beverage-related conversation.
There’s the one in the sole of my flip-flop which requires me to put something that comes in contact with both my bare foot and whatever I’ve stepped in near the part of a bottle where you put your mouth.
There’s the one in the bill of my novelty “I Feel the Need, The Need for Lake Mead” visor with the sewn-in wig of bleached, spiky hair like Guy Fieri. (Now there’s a guy who looks like he knows how to open a bottle, am I right?)
And check out my Talladega Nights promotional belt buckle, which is, you guessed it, a bottle opener. All I have to do is put your drink near my penis and thrust to pop the top.
“Wow,” I assume you’re wondering, “What’s the craziest time someone’s needed a bottle opener and you’ve saved the day?” Probably my brother’s birthday party. We were chillin’ on a pontoon boat with a whole case of bottled brewskis and no opener. But guess who just happened to be wearing his bottle opener wedding ring? This guy.
Bet you didn’t think I’m married, and as it turns out I’m not. Anymore.
Why did I make bottle openers my thing? For one, it’s hard to make friends as an adult, and this is a surefire icebreaker.
Also, I guess you could say it’s because of that one time we were celebrating my own wedding reception on my brother's pontoon boat, and nobody had a bottle opener. So I said, “Hey, I can open a bottle on the edge of a table,” and my new wife warned me repeatedly not to do it because of all the times I couldn’t. But then I did it anyway. But then I also broke the bottle off at the neck and a glass shard flung straight into her eye. She was mostly fine.
Then I said, “Well, I can open bottles with a Bic lighter, anyone got a Bic lighter?” And someone did. And again my blushing, bloodshot bride begged me not to try. But I did try, and the lighter sprayed fluid all over the lit sparklers we were holding, engulfing my wife’s wedding dress and her white sateen “Catch of the Day” sash in flames, and she had to jump into Lake Mead to put it out.
When she had dried off, I offered her a beer which, of course, needed to be opened. I said, “I bet I can open that bottle with my teeth” and, in attempting to do so, crushed three molars.
After that, I was, as her divorce attorney put it, “unable to perform cunnilingus anymore in such a way that satisfied our marital contract” and that that ability was “in retrospect, the only lingering attraction between my client and her husband anymore.”
I know what you’re thinking: Did he open the bottle?
Honestly, I don’t know. That bottle rolled off the deck of the pontoon boat and lies somewhere at the bottom of Lake Mead to this day.
But here is what I do know: The naked feeling of not having a bottle opener on my person. The panic of waking up in a cold sweat, haunted by nightmares where I’m surrounded by bottles that cannot be opened. The physical and financial pain of paying for alimony while trying to afford multiple reconstructive oral surgeries.
That reminds me, I’ve also got a titanium business card-shaped bottle opener in my wallet right next to my debit card and the photo of my two kids who I will never bring up. Frankly, they’re not worth talking about because they can’t even open bottles yet.
Sorry, that beer of yours isn’t getting any colder. Feel free to inch away to the other side of the pontoon boat as so many before you have done.
Don’t worry about me. My place, my duty, remains here. Among the bottles.
I just hope nobody realizes they’re all twist-offs.