This is the 94th installment of a 100-day challenge to write a new vignette every morning.
Warm beer on a cold day isn’t my idea of fun. When it’s warm, you can’t trick your taste buds into thinking it’s good. They’re awake, and they know.
Beer tastes like you chewed stale bread and then just let it sit in your mouth for a week. Warm beer tastes just like that, but there are heat fumes and maybe the bread was in your mouth for two weeks.
It’s warm because I need to keep it in my coat, pressed against my skin. I need to keep it in my coat because it’ll freeze otherwise. I need to keep it from freezing because it’s all I have left.
I learned my lesson with the water. I thought I could leave it in the ice chest—if an ice chest can keep cold in, it can keep cold out, right? Wrong. The water froze, and now all I’ve got are Tanner’s beers. I wish I hadn’t finished my ciders that first night.
The truck broke down three—four?—days ago and interrupted our camping trip before it even began. That first night, we slept in the cab on the side of the road. We were still too far north, so the ground was too hard to pitch a tent. And, besides, we figured another car would come by and help us out.
We never saw another car. Tanner left to get help yesterday. I don’t know if he’ll come back. I only have two beers left.
Miles Away 