What's in the Bottle? Read online

What’s in the Bottle?

  By P.R.R.

  Copyright 2013 P.R.R.

  This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to any persons, businesses, or items is purely coincidental.

  “And if you call in the next ten minutes, we’ll include a premium quality stainless steel bottle opener, free of charge.” “Hello. Dave speaking. I’d like to order ten bottles. That’d be all.” “Ten bottles. OK sir and congratulations. You qualify for our special offer, the premium quality stainless steel bottle opener.” “Thanks, I just want the bottles please.” “But sir, this is a special opportunity.” “Yes, I know. I just want the bottles, please. I don’t need a bottle opener.” “Yes sir, we will send you ten bottles, but I would like you to reconsider our special offer.” “Just the bottles please.” “Sir, we have to offer you the bottle opener. It’s the company policy sir.” “Thanks for the offer but I just want the bottles please.” “Yes sir, we will send you the bottles, but since you called ten minutes before the end of the advertisement we would like to offer you our unique bottle opener.” “Look man, just send the bottles, OK? I don’t need more junk in my apartment.” “Sir, what we offer is premium quality. A stainless steel bottle opener with a deluxe metal finish. ” “So why does stainless steel need a metal finish for? Just send me the bottles please.” “But wouldn’t you...” “No. Are you listening to me. Send me the stupid bottles and... You know what, forget about it. I don’t want the bottles anymore.” Dave hung up the phone: “Man I need a beer. So scientists still wonder how alcoholism develops?“

  It was 4 a.m. Aline had to go to the bathroom. Dave woke up: “Again?” “Yeah, it’s not like I have prostate cancer. I’m just pregnant”, she replied. He was mumbling incomprehensibly, then said: “… have to go too. Could be the case for me.” At 6:50 the alarm went off. “Ahhh… I don’t want to go to work. What’s the time?”, Aline asked Dave after she slowly propped herself up against the headboard. “I don’t know. 6:50?”. “Then it’s 6:35. You know the fifteen minutes…” “Why don’t you set your clock right?”, he asked. “Because I need those extra fifteen minutes.” “Then set your alarm fifteen minutes earlier.” “Yeah, but this way I feel like I’m getting an extra fifteen minutes...” “By stealing fifteen minutes of my life with your logic!” It was one of those mornings when you just don’t want to go to work. The sun was slowly rising over the hillsides. The smell of morning dew was entering the room. Well, just like any other morning when you don’t want to go to work. “I’m going to make some tea. Want some?”

  Aline started browsing through the pile of newspapers her parents brought while she and Dave were on holidays. She asked Dave if he read any of the articles in the local newspaper. “Yeah, about the financial market and the crisis and how it’s all affecting our town, something about some new ecologic disaster someplace we don’t care about but we should; you know, same old same old about how it’s all going to...” “And the Bottlette article?” “Yeah, you mean the one about a guy who was growing strawberries? Wait, I have it here… we started off with 500 plants and at the end we were producing fifty tons of strawberries. The business was going well, but I felt my personal development wasn’t advancing anymore. Growing strawberries made me realize how important water sources are. When we started we didn’t have any problems with water. After five years or so, some of the water sources we were using were slowly drying out and eventually this became a problem. You know, strawberries need a lot of water. I knew that the quality of water matters when it comes to growing plants. This got me thinking. We closed down the strawberry business and started making water bottles. Not ordinary water bottles. Using a special procedure we write a program into the silicon in the glass bottle. When you pour water into the bottle the quality improves up to 30%, which has all sorts of beneficial health effects... “I hate these people”, shouted Dave. “Hey, calm down! It’s 7 a.m. and you’re already making me nervous”, said Aline. Dave went on: “These motherfucking turtle-ass licking cocksuckers! It makes me want to stick a goat up this guy’s asshole and then... Ahhh, fucking prick! OK, it’s 7 a.m. I’m calm. These success stories make me nervous. These guys with their brilliant fucking ideas, when all they do is import shit products. Stupid shit that doesn’t even work. They rip off people and they sleep well at night. Why can’t they get an honest job with a lousy salary like everybody else? Work hard, make some money and try to live a modest life. Fuck. There are people working twelve hours a day at construction sites and they don’t even make 10% of what this guy is making. And what the fuck is this shit with personal growth? Is this how we’re going to solve the financial crisis? By opening scam businesses like this one? With all the shit in the world is this really necessary?” “Calm down, this is how it works”, said Aline. “OK, I’m calm.” “You want butter and jam on your bread?” “Yeah.” “I don’t feel like going to work today”, said Dave. “Well at least do some work around the house then. Go shopping.” “Yeah, sure.” “I can take the bus if you need the car. Just don’t drink and drive, OK?” “OK, I’ll drive you to work then.”

  “See you at 4.” “Yeah, see you then.” She opened the glove compartment to take out her wallet. “Do you have to keep it in the car?”, she asked. “OK relax, I’m taking it out first thing after I get home.”, said Dave. He drove to the gas station and filled the car up. “Well, if I’m not going to work I might as well do something useful. Drive down to the city and buy some stuff we need”, he thought.

  Dave drove to the supermarket, bought some food and then drove back home. He started cleaning around the house, then washed the dishes and hung the clothes. “It’s just incredible how much actual work can you do if you don’t go to work.” All sorts of things were going through his mind - like the milk cartons. When did they start putting those small plastic caps on them? You unscrew the cap and then you have to put your finger into a small ring and pull on the safety seal. It makes a hole into the carton. The hole is so small that when you start pouring the milk, the air can’t get into the carton fast enough and the milk starts spraying all around, so you end up with half of it on the floor. These milk cartons have been around for ages. Come on, by now they should’ve fixed this. You have a company with thousands of people working there. All they do is buy milk from farmers, heat it up to 161 degrees, cool it down and then fill the cartons. And in ten years they couldn’t figure out that the cartons they are buying are crap? Exactly how much brainpower is needed to figure this out? And by the way, why is the hole so small? Then he remembered: “Ah darn, I forgot to buy milk. I have to remember to buy the non-homogenized one. At least it still tastes like milk. And it’s in plastic bottles with big screw-on caps. Big fucking caps that cover big fucking holes.” He decided to watch some TV to calm down: “… and if you call in the next ten minutes we will give you an extra full-sized pillow for free. Our special offer …” “Fuck! And if I call in the next ten minutes and I don’t want to have the extra pillow? Assholes…” He switched the channel. “…, …” “Of course it’s Every beer is . This is the best commercial they could come up with? For ? Besides, by now all export beers taste the same. So doesn’t have any meaning at all. It could as well be . If they had any imagination they would say .” He changed the channel. After half an hour of Air Crash Investigation he was finally calm.

  He drove down to the same supermarket in town. He didn’t know exactly why. There were more than ten enormous supermarkets to choose from and more being built. Highly likely the supermarket square footage per person was higher than the average apartment square footage per person in the small town he lived in. Furthermore, none of the supermarkets were shut down in the last five years. With a population of only twenty thousand or so this was a mystery. He
walked in, although focused only on the non-homogenized milk, he stopped by the beer section. “Oh well, since it’s my day off, I’ll take two cans of .” He also took one generic beer can just to compare. He paid for beer and milk and walked out of the supermarket. When he got to his car he put the milk into the trunk and the beer cans onto the roof. First he opened a can of . It was ice-cold. Probably that’s why it tasted so good. It tasted much better than a beer should taste. It was like flavored coffee. Putting the ridiculously high price aside, it really tastes incredibly good. The reason it tastes so good is because it probably doesn’t have any coffee in it. Dave finished the beer in a couple of