WHY THEY CARD for N.A. BEER
Here are the actual reasons they card for N.A. Beer:
One: Grocery store employees are less likely to make a mistake if it says beer on the side and isn’t in a soda bottle.
Two: It’s considered beer if it’s taxed like it’s beer and if it’s taxed like beer than it only exists on paper as beer. Reality be damned.
Three: (And this is the fun one.) They sell more if they card you.
N.A. Beer has the same alcohol content as orange juice. They put the alcohol percentage on the can, but you’d never make the ten beers in ten minutes it would take to get a 1-beer-buzz off of non-alcoholic beer. Why, then, do they put the alcohol content on the side? It’s more appealing if it’s harder to get. The juice is probably worth the squeeze if they card you for it.
One time when I was a kid, I got carded for Root Beer at a gas station. That lady was ahead of her time.
N.A. Beer is more like Real Beer than Root Beer, for sure. Root beer isn’t brewed anymore, hence it isn't taxed like alcohol. And N.A. tastes like real beer… smells like real beer… its a little closer to being a duck. Only three types of people drink N.A. Beer: Those who can’t drink real beer, those who won’t drink real beer, and those that don’t know there is such a thing as real beer, which… is probably rare but if that person exists, please email me.
Alright, so since this is my blog, I’ve decided to use the weirdest of all psychoanalysts to really dig into the paradox of NA Beer.: Jacques Lacan. Lacan came from the 1960s when everybody was thinking about genitals. Full disclosure. He’s French and I don’t speak French, so if there are any Lacanians reading this and I get something wrong… don’t email me. I’m fragile.
Jacques Lacan and his case-of-self centered around the idea of desire and being desired. However, due to the symbolic nature of human language, our desires become way too complicated way too fast. For example:
This tastes like beer and has the word beer on the side, but something is missing. In the case of the NA Beer it's alcohol. In the case of you, a subject, it’s that one thing that when you get it… you’ll finally feel whole again. A thing: an object.
If I could just get that car, job, woman, debt, body part, N.A. Beer… everything will be okay.
This is why when we turn people into objects we say things like: you complete me. It’s called the Arrival fallacy.
We even believe that we were complete once. Back before language. Back in the womb. Back when we didn’t need a thing to be happy because we hadn’t developed frontal lobes or personalities yet. Or memory, for that matter.
After the womb, the next best thing was a boob, right? Right next to a heartbeat. Safe. Filling. Yet by this point we already demand food. It’s all downhill from here. And then later we start to realize that we don’t just get food, but warmth… connection… And so the search for the Infinite Boob begins.
The thing about objects, though, is that they don’t change. But we do. You’re a subject, and therefore subjugated by the whims of your subconscious, which changes as you gain experience. Once you get that car you don’t want it anymore. That beer gets old. That job gets old. Everything gets old. That shiny new lover turns out to be human after all. Anytime you say to yourself “now everything will be fine” — Arrival fallacy.
Social Media is the Arrival Fallacy Apex Predator: That, an object – the good life, right there – completes me, a subject. All I need is a face like that. Every good salesman convinces you that a commodity is actually what you need to be whole again. There are sorts of things that get closest to finding the infinite boob: kindness, nurture, connection. But we can’t get those things every time we need them. So we shot for the next best thing... a symbol of temporary completion. A part-time boob. (Bottles look like nipples …and don’t even get me started on cigarettes.)
It’s not a bad thing… You deserve to have a little fun. You’ve been busy at your nine-to-five building thingies. After a long day at work, you want a nice, cool glass of… anything.
Humans operate more like stomachs than brains. Stomachs are always digesting. Arrival never happens. You’ve never had a meal so good you’ve stopped eating. You will never have a partner so perfect you stop wondering. You will never have enough part-time boobs to replace the infinite boob that was never really there in the first place.
…I know, I know. What the heck am I talking about? Non-alcoholic beer. Right. Desire, obtain, consume, digest, desire.
There is, as always, a problem. Two, actually.
No replacement person / place / thing can ever replace the thing we never had: perfect contentment.
The speed, by way of technology, that we can now obtain new things is HIGH. Real high. Curious? Google it. Lonely? Google it. Hungry? They come to you. There is now no time to realize it isn’t ever enough.
Psychoanalyst Julia Kristeva added another concept to this system: Sometimes things are gross. Revolting.
She calls this abjection: as in “abject horror.” Not only are you a subject, but you’re a subject who hates to be reminded that you’re mortal. And it’s always on the back end. You’re not a brain; you’re a stomach. A stomach that burps, fats, vomits, bleeds, etc.
Decay. Decay means death. Death changes things. In a world where we don’t have to work to find things-that-are-never-quite-enough, decay is the only way out. Society tries to sell you perfection. Abjection tells you it doesn’t matter.
Revolting is the same root as Revolt. It’s harder to market to a revolting subject. If you’re a moving target, they can’t pin you down.
If I drink too many non-alcoholic beers I get wicked bad heartburn. Gas. Freedom.
Even therapy – especially therapy – can fall into the Arrival Fallacy. Your job will feel fine if you just meditate more. Even though it's minimum wage, at least you’re getting paid something. …but what if it’s not you. It’s them.
Revolting helps revolting.
If they card you for non-alcoholic beer, it makes it seem like it used too. The old days, when you didn’t care if it was alcoholic or not. The womb. Nostalgia for a thing that didn’t happen.
They card you for N.A. beer so you won't scream, revolt, and set the building on fire. All I’m saying is pepper in a few long hugs between those partial-replacement objects. Nutrition.