Complex Numbers

Something is Rotten in Belgium

If anyone's joining us from "July 2020 Blogging Bliss Newsletter - Issue Ninety-One" : Hi! Everyone else should definitely check out that link, because it features Me. Oh, and some other cool stuff too.

PROMPT July 28th

All month, you’ve been replying to prompts straight from the Challenge War Chest, filled with prompts from previous 30DBC competitors. Today, write three of your own prompts and then reply to one of them in your entry.

I had a disappointing experience yesterday. I've been walking to my local taphouse about once a week since they reopened (patio only) for some food and fine fermented beverage. Someone has to make sure they're still in business for the foreseeable future, and I volunteer as tribute. Anyway, yesterday was Taphouse Day for me. Among other libations, I ordered a Duvel  , because whenever a Belgian beer shows up on draft, I jump on that sucker.

What I got wasn't a Duvel. I know what it's supposed to taste like, and it was just... off. Didn't even taste Belgian. Maybe they got a bad batch, or they mixed up the taps, or something. I also considered the possibility the fault was in my own palate -- sometimes beer just tastes different if you eat certain foods or drink something else first -- but none of the other beers I tried were wrong. Besides, the trademark feature of a Duvel (and a few other Belgians) is a particularly creamy head, and this one was as headless as a horseman.

Only mildly disappointing, to be sure, but I mention it because in all the years I've been a craft beer snob, this is the first time I could tell that something just wasn't right. Well, there was the time a brewer in Colorado had me try what he called an IPA, and I was like, "This isn't bad; it's more like an ESB." "Oh, yeah, it is an ESB but Americans think it'll be bitter, so we call it an IPA." For the record, ESB is "Extra Special Bitter," but the style isn't bitter at all, while IPA (India Pale Ale) does tend to be bitter, so... I mean... what? They're both British styles. Leave it to the Brits to call malty beer "bitter" and label their own invention "India." (There's a story behind that but... later.) And leave it to the Yanks to call a thing something that it's not in an effort to sell more of it.

So, whatever, I had some other good beer and a nice stagger back home, marred only by my neighbor's Rott trying to kill me.

Point of all of this is that yesterday's experiences inform the three prompts I'm supposed to come up with today for the 30DBC.

1) Have you ever been attacked or threatened by someone's pet or a wild animal? If so, what happened? If not, what do you think you'd do?
2) What's the longest distance you've ever walked in one go?
3) Describe a time when you expected one thing and got something else.

I know I only have to talk about one of them, but:

1) The Rott today. I just stood on the sidewalk and stared him down. I was just sober enough to know that dogs take that as a challenge, and just drunk enough not to care. Come at me, mutt. His human corralled him, though.
2) I talked about yesterday. Worked out to something between 6 and 7 miles. The walk to the taphouse is only like a mile and a quarter (seems like more when it's 100F outside, though). If you're a kilometer/Celsius person, do the math; I can't be arsed right now.
And since I've already talked at length about (3), you can read about it above.