968 words so far…

Ger­ald and Phil ran into Dean and Car­leen at the liquor mart. The par­ty was BYOB, and so they were try­ing to decide between brands of vod­ka. Car­leen was a bit of a conois­seur, and so was try­ing to steer Dean toward the expen­sive stuff. Dean was look­ing at the cheap stuff, the econ­o­my being what it was and all. Ger­ald said, “I read somewhere”–which with Ger­ald usu­al­ly trans­lat­ed to I saw on the Inter­net–“that you can fil­ter the cheap stuff through a water fil­ter, like say a Bri­ta? About four times, and it tastes just as good as the expen­sive stuff.”

Dean gave Car­leen a look, and Car­leen said, “You’re not help­ing, Ger­ry.” Which was true, and at least part­ly why he’d said it in the first place.

“So if you were want­i­ng beer”–Carleen made a face–“what kind would you like?”

“Horse piss,” said Car­leen, not quite sot­to voce. An old­er man on the oth­er side of the vod­ka aisle gave her a dis­taste­ful look, and she winked at him. Flus­tered, he looked away.

“Uh, Rickard’s is always good,” said Dean. “Cana­di­an’s not bad either.”

“If you can stand the taste,” said Carleen. 

“You’ve already made it clear you’re not drink­ing it,” said Phil. To Dean: “What about Blue?”

“Yeah, sure, what­ev­er,” said Dean. “Beer’s beer, you know?”

They all four of them nodded.