This I know.

Tuesday mornings are not a good time to buy beer.


When we were living in the Netherlands,  I had the bike,  and beer there tends to be sold in six packs.  This arrangement is conducive to not only having a variety on hand,  but a six pack fits nicely into a bike bag.
Buying individual cans or bottles of beer here is entirely possible,  but when there's a sale on,  and the individual price drops from €,75 down to €.53 when purchasing 24?   Well then,  it's the entire case or nothing.

I had it all planned.

   Two shopping bags.  One heavy duty reinforced number into which I would slide the aforementioned case of beer,  (it has the appropriate heavy duty straps as well)  and another less robust type for the one or two other things that I seem to need on a daily basis.

 Smooth as silk.

That's how I would describe the way I deftly placed everything in the appropriate carrying devices,   returned the shopping cart and retrieved my Euro coin.

Even if only shopping, it should be done with some style.

No problems on the walk home.   Nicely balanced with a case of beer in the one hand and a full bag of groceries in the other.   Stopped outside the door to the cafe briefly to hear that my usage of the Orange USB internet thingy was a wash,  since my friend got his bill,  and there were no additional charges.

I still want to pay half his monthly bill,  but I wasn't going to stand there holding thirty or forty kilos while we argued the point.

Got to the elevator,  getting ever so closer to wanting to put everything down, but figured I could hang in there for the ride up the six floors.   (I said yesterday it was seven.....sorry,  can't count)

I was then informed that the elevator was not working....

Whu?

See,  Tuesday is the day when all the floors in the common area get cleaned.  Seems the cleaner dude decided to put the elevator out of commission rather than chase the damned thing from floor to floor,  so that meant muggins here carted a case of beer and a bag of groceries up six floors.
Six sets of stairs that had just been washed,  I might add.  Nothing like throwing in little element of difficulty.

I'm sitting here typing this,  so that should be testament to the fact that I didn't completely croak,  but there were a couple minutes there .....



Maybe instead of some sort of card that proves you're old enough to buy beer,  there should be some sort of requirement for physical endurance?
Makes sense to me.
  Something like those signs at the entrance to a ride at a carnival.  "You must be this tall to go on the ride".

"It has been ascertained that the bearer of this card can indeed carry a case beer up six flights".

And under "endorsements";

"Level of difficulty ranging between six and ten".

You may now proceed.