2020 has been a lot. The list of things that have gotten fucked up, gone sideways or just flat out gone is far too long to hold the fragile, traumatized attention of the mayfly internet.
So I’m just gonna talk about one thing. One silly little thing that barely registers in the big pandemic picture of cancelled holidays, dead loved ones, crushed dreams and lost family businesses. Something profoundly unimportant in the face of…
(waves hands around at all this)
I’m gonna talk about eggnog.
Ok, so maybe you loathe the stuff, or you’re lactose intolerant, or on a diet, or maybe you’re from somewhere outside LA and don’t know about Broguiere’s Dairy.
Anyway, it’s been a fucking saga. The local, family-owned dairy had been providing glass bottled “milk so fresh the cow doesn’t know it’s missing” for over a century, not to mention the World’s Greatest Nog. (Fight me!)
When Broguiere’s abruptly announced that they would be going out of business in July of 2019, hardcore Nogistas like me were ready to take to the streets. We got a lucky reprieve when they inexplicably reopened a month later and I’ve been seeing the famous thick glass milk bottles all over town ever since. I scored my fix for xmas 2019 and all seemed right with the Southern California world. But none of that matters, because the real test was yet to come.
LA is under another super strict holiday lockdown right now and it seems to be getting tighter by the minute. So, rather than traipsing around on my usual physical Nog hunt, I figured I’d make use of the interwebs and start scanning various delivery apps to see if anyone had the stuff. Lo and befuckinghold, I found it at Gelson’s.
I immediately placed an Instacart order, but as anyone who has dealt with these kind of services before can tell you, you don’t find out if they have the thing you want until the shopper gets there and finds it. Or doesn’t. And no, I don’t want a fucking substitute. So I’m here, waiting on the proverbial tenterhooks…
Spoiler: They didn’t find it.
Annoyed but not all that surprised, I figured I would need to don my Twelve Monkeys suit and go find the shit myself.
As I continued my frantic googling to find places within a 100 mile radius that might still carry it, I started stumbling across some disturbing complaints.
First of all, I noticed that it was being offered in plastic containers this year, instead of the familiar, returnable glass bottles. Which sucks, sure, but I get it, what with that pesky pestilence currently ravaging the country. I saw a few people commenting that the plastic made it taste different, which seemed maybe a little bit crazy and over-sensitive, but ok. Then I saw this:
Sure enough, Yelp is now full of reviews confirming my worst fear.
“… nothing good can ever last forever.” You said it, sister.
So here’s the thing. Eggnog doesn’t fucking matter. At all. Spend a hot minute scanning the horrorshow that passes for news these days and you’ll see a hundred things that are infinitely worse than the demise of the World’s Best Eggnog. Never mind all the brutal personal things that each one of us is going through every damn day that don’t even make the news.
But sometimes you take it and take it and take it and then some stupid little irrelevant thing happens and you suddenly can’t fucking take it anymore. You no-sell all the big stuff and soldier on like the rugged American lone wolf that we all love to pretend we are until some tiny, unimportant annoyance has you punching walls and bawling your eyes out over fucking eggnog.
Of course, it has nothing to do with eggnog.
I’ll be fine. I’ll make my own damn eggnog and keep on soldiering on. All I’m saying is that it’s hard sometimes, for reasons that aren’t always what they seem to be on the surface. And if it’s hard for you too, I see you and I get it.
So if someone you know, or someone you don’t know, or someone you just happen to be stuck with in line for bulk toilet paper, starts flipping the fuck out over dumb shit that makes no sense, maybe cut them a little slack. Maybe realize that we are all just barely holding it together, some days more successfully than others.
I’m even willing to cut Broguiere’s Dairy some slack. They were already struggling before the pandemic, like so many small family businesses. I can’t even imagine what they must be going through right now.
Anyway, stay safe out there, Faustketeers. Stay home when you can, wear a mask when you can’t, squeeze whatever drops of holiday cheer you can manage from the dregs of 2020 and don’t forget to wash your damn hands.
