Beer & Burger get Nostalgic

“Fancy some lunch to match our team name?” suggests Angus as we walk past one of our favourite pub chains. This question does not even require a response and Angus smiles at me as I open the door for him.

Having ordered ‘the usual’ we plonk our pints down messily on the table and nostalgia sweeps over me. Or is it just half of my cider sloshing out over my hand?

“Do you remember when we came up with our team name?” I say, grinning whilst I wipe my sticky hand over Angus’ lovely clean t-shirt.

“Yes,” I laugh. Ellen thinks that she’s wiped her hand on my ‘clean’ t-shirt, this isn’t strictly speaking true and I wonder what germs she’s caught off its one week prison break from the washing basket.

If this was a cheesy nineties comedy the screen would swim and we’d both be plunged into a flashback. However, it isn’t, so I stare into the middle-distance as I remember. We were at a party following a day’s caving, or spelunking or potholing or whatever you want to call it, and as usual festivities turned to ridiculous games designed to bring out either a competitive edge or heavy bruising. Apart from table traversing and Ellen’s favourite trick of wrapping a broom about herself without letting go, a new game gets announced. The purpose is to clip a karabiner or climbing clip to a chair whilst you sit on another with your team mate straddling you. It involves balance, strength and technique. Step forward Beer & Burger the team with more balance, strength and technique than an Olympic squad. We are elite.  We are the finest. We have also been drinking and think it will be a laugh.

“We didn’t have a team name then,” I point out, because we are so finely attuned that I can also see his daydreams, “In fact, that was like the first time we even spoke properly.” He’s still staring into the middle distance, “Didn’t you get off with one of my friends later that night?” I poke him in the ribs, waking him from his daze.

“Well we weren’t even seeing each other then,” is the defensive and worried response. I laugh and settle back in my chair as the barman brings us our burgers.

“That was epic though,” I say, picking up a chip as I start to go off into my own daydream. With the completion of every round the two chairs are moved further apart. After several knock outs the only people left are us and ‘team hefty’.

“You’ll never do that!” snorts one of our friends at the start of the round, “Ellen’s way too short – it defies physics!”

“Watch us!” I shout, or possibly slur. And watch us they did, with baited breath and in complete awe as we beat our opponents (and apparently physics) to a room full of cheers and applause!

“Oh yeah,” I reply, “But that was the event. Well, that and a string of catastrophic pub quiz failures.”

Ellen takes a whopping bite out of her chorizo and halloumi burger and says between mouthfuls, “It was our first date wasn’t it?”

“Yeah!” I laugh.

To many people romance is typified by Hollywood clichés of flowers and sit-down dinners, people supping on oysters and chewing on mussels whilst being fanned with a bouquet of roses having chocolates catapulted at them by giant teddy bears. We on the other hand have a team name. When your parents name you Angus they do so with some pride but forget an Angus is a cow that is made into a selection of rather fine burgers, and if you enter into a team with someone with the surname Beer - there is only one logical name to have scribbled on your pub quiz answer sheet.

It was after a couple of weeks of hanging out with the other cavers and getting to know each other better, that I decided it was time to swallow my pride. Sat in my room staring at my phone I started to type.

“So I was thinking!” Exclamation marks always make things sound more exciting and lighthearted. “My name is Beer, and your name is a kind of burger meat… so we’re like… Beer & Burger!” Did that sound too geeky? No, no it was endearing. Just add a single kiss… ok… send! Almost immediately my phone started doing the ‘you have a text dance’ on my desk and I looked at it reluctantly.

“THAT. IS. AWESOME!!!!” My relief was unprecedented. I smiled and started my reply.

“So, we should go for a Beer & Burger deal one lunch… in homage to our team name. If you want?”

“I can’t believe you were apprehensive,” I say to Ellen in the present.

“It might have sounded stupid and sad”, Ellen says quietly and when she sees my incredulous face she says, “Not everyone thinks like you Angus.”

“Oh yeah,” I grin, “I thought it was amazing. And here we are.” I raise my glass in one hand and my burger in the other, “To Beer & Burger!” We salute with our pints and our food to the Aberdeen Angus run brewery in the sky and behind Ellen’s back I clip her belt loop to her chair with a karabiner I happen to have in my pocket and smile innocently as she catches my eye.