"A beer is a lot like a woman. They smell good, they look good, and you'd step over your own mother just to get one." - Homer, The Simpsons

Worth it? Yeah.

“Is that pop?” the clerk asked, a puzzled expression on her face.

“No. It’s beer,” I replied.

“But the age check didn’t come up,” she insisted, checking the screen on her register for the third time.

“Well, I should hope that you’re not thinking about carding me,” I replied. Then I shamefully admitted in a tiny voice, “It’s not real beer. It’s near-beer.”

Oh the horror, the shame. Me, John Wilder, buying O’Doul’s©. On purpose.

During my last experience with antibiotics, I’d been restricted from that sudsly delight of which none other than Founding Father Ben Franklin (and Founding Editor of Ye Poore Richard’s Playfulboy – the wood carving of Miss September, 1746 was a stunner) actually said, “Beer is proof that God loves us, and wants us to be happy.”

During my confinement away from real beer I was working in the yard. It was hot. Sweaty. Beer weather (in truth, cold and shivery is also beer weather in my book, but that’s splitting hairs). I drove off to the store and bought a six-pack of O’Doul’s™.

I cracked the top of the beer umm, beverage, and drank. Deeply. Astonished, I put the beer umm, beverage, down.

It was good. Dang. I really liked it. Just dang.

I finished working in the yard while my head swam with possibilities. Hmmm. I could drink as many of these as I wanted. It’s cheaper than real beer. It has fewer calories. There’s NO DOWNSIDE. Except, of course, the shame.

Oh, the other downside is that The Mrs. mocks me. We were talking on the phone, and The Mrs. let on that she was going to go to the store to pick some things up. I requested that The Mrs. purchase some near beer for me.

“It’s not real beer. Why not drink water?” The Mrs. asked.

“Okay. Want to talk about Diet Pepsi©?” The Mrs. had won with a stunning oratory in the Great Diet Pepsi™ War of 2005, maintaining the right of women everywhere (okay, not everywhere, but in our house) to consume calorie-free soda, which is, like near beer, essentially real expensive water.

I’m off antibiotics now, but yet the O’Doul’s© sits in front of me as I write this. Actually, it’s three four empties and the one I’m currently sipping on sitting next to my monitor.

Now, O’Doul’s® are not alcohol free. In fact, if I weighed a little less than I did when I was in seventh grade, and drank a case of O’Doul’s™ in an hour and did not manage to die of diluting my system with 288 ounces (931 liters) of water, well, I would be almost impaired enough not to drive. If the wind didn’t blow me away first, being that I would weigh less than John McCain’s chances of becoming President. (True fact: near beer has about the same concentration of alcohol in it as does orange juice, and just slightly less than the alcohol content of Lindsey Lohan’s breath).

The philistines in Pennsylvania are (as near as the first search page on Google© can prove, because I got bored after that one) the only state to prevent children under the age of 21 from, and I quote, “purchasing non-alcoholic beverages.” I’m guessing that the legislature in Pennsylvania doesn’t really read that one before voting. The way I read it, if you’re under 21 you can’t buy Coca-Cola© in Pennsylvania, but stock up on all the Cuervo™ you want.

I also appear to be a part of a fraternity of people that I didn’t know existed. I was shopping at Target® and grabbed the last few six packs of O’Doul’s© off the shelf. I was walking around with The Mrs., The Boy, and Pugsley, when a twenty-ish, USMC-ish looking guy came up to us.

“Dude – where’d you find the O’Doul’s™? I love that stuff.”

I’d like to tell you I shared. In reality I told him where the O’Doul’s© had been. I saw him later, and he looked sad. No O’Doul’s® for him. Not his. There wouldn’t be, he said, with a sniffle, until tomorrow.

But I had mine. Even if the age check thingy didn’t come up.