BEER AS A CREATIVE AID

When all other forms of persuasion have failed, remind her of the advice of the Middle Eastern Philosopher and German immigrant, Schlitz M. Liquor. He said, "You only go around once in life. So grab all the gusto you can." The drift of the message is: you should build what you want - not what you think you need.

Now go the fridge and grab a beer. Any brand name beer you have in the ice box will do. Some people prefer their beer in green bottles or with a micro-brew label on the theory that fancy beer stimulates intellectual discussion. My recommendation is to use Iron City Beer. If you are discussing manly things then you should drink a beer that at least sounds manly.

By the way, do this at home as discussing your home improvement project and driving can be just as dangerous as drinking and driving. Combining the two is the worst possible mistake. I have been known to swerve unexpectedly while vehemently gesturing and elaborating the pros and cons of putting a heat duct where a floor joist is supposed to be.

My wife is a teetotaler. Consequently, when I tried this method for ironing out our differences regarding the addition, she was at first skeptical. She said," I don't think I'll have one, Honey, but you go ahead."

She smiled charmingly. I gripped my brown bottle beer and steadily stared her in the eye. "Den, with a large screen TV," I said forcefully.

She continued to smile. "Now, Honey," she replied. "You said that we were going to discuss this in a friendly manner."

"Three-car garage..." I intoned.

After fifteen minutes of this, she asked helpfully, "Can I get you another beer?"

I should have been suspicious. It is my rule to never drink more than one beer in a day, and my wife's fastidiousness is one reason for this rule. Needless to say, I said, "Sure." Twice.

Self-indulgence, as usual, proved to be my undoing. When returning from the kitchen, Robin sat close beside me and put her arm around my shoulder, then slowly curled it around my neck. She took me under her wing, so to speak. It was such an insidious maneuver that I did not realize what she was doing.

I struggled to get away, but the beer and her firm grip got the better of me. Placing the knuckles of her left hand on the top of my head, she said, "Bill, agree to do things my way, or I am going to rub until all of your hair falls out."

As my hair is already falling out at an alarming rate, I found this to be a persuasive argument. I relented, and, there, locked in my wife's loving embrace, I roughly sketched out the plans for a new master bedroom with attached walk-in closet and bathroom. It hardly seemed fair. Wasn't I the one who won the arm wrestling match?

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