Meatless? Monday.

Tote Bag

Boo fuckin' ya. Last night was Meatless Monday. Meatless Monday is a charity event sponsored by Gardenburger and Rogue Brewery to raise money for ARC. Which is a non-profit group that supports the mentally disabled. Those fuckers know how to party. I'm a huge meat fan, I love meat, I eat sides of meat with my meat, which was most likely preceded by a meat salad and meat water. But god damn I was impressed with the veggie food. I ate every delicious bite. All 10 servings which were to be accompanied by 10 samples (4oz) of Rogue Ales. Which would have been a fine time indeed in and of itself! But then shit got crazy.

We got to the 3rd serving and the Rogue server that Pat had tipped brought us an extra round. Well, sweet, I like beer. Until the next server, a volunteer who happened to be the Chairman or something of one of these organizations, showed up at our table and dropped us off another round of the 3rd sample and gave us a quick "better catch up boys." So we start downing these samples, and then another volunteer server, a colleague, dropped off another round "I can't count," she says. Apparently all of them lacked that ability. The entire night. Quadruple samples of Dead Guy Ale. Double servings of veggie chili. Three rounds of Chocolate Stout. Who knows how many samples of Traintrack Ale. On and on and on. I was as close to loosening my belt as I ever have been in a public place.

It didn't hurt that somehow we buddied up with some business director and his wife at the table next to us. Everyone seemed to know him because of this recycling coffee bean bags into tote bags thing he created with ARC, etc etc. They were great company and what he's done is fantastic. I just can't figure out who he thought we were. From sample 5 on, he became a fixture at our table. We were toasting, pounding samples, high-fiving...ok, there were no high-fives, this time. In the end he's telling me to call him directly to get the bags at cost, hoping to hear an order of 600. 600! Holy rusted fucking metal! Of course by this point we were 30 samples in... All said and done the kind gent gave me the tote bag he had on him and I spent a large portion of the night sleeping on top of the heating vent on my floor. Fucking good people, good food, and great beer. Next year I'm bringing everyone I know.