We’re at the Music Festival. We’ve made camp and are heading down to the main stage field to partake. This Festival was unique in being the first, a few years back, to allow beer consumption throughout the grounds, until 9pm when it was then confined to the traditional “Beer garden” area. Somewhere along the way today we’ve seen “reusable cups only” signs.

I’m heading to the main field to get beer tickets. “Bring your gomug. I’ll see you there” I say to Bro, who’s heading to the biffy first.

Here’s how the Cup Game played out.

Step 1 – I buy 6 beer tickets at $8 at each = $48. While in the short line I see lots of “Festival” cups for sale. Nice merchandise, I prefer t-shirts, posters or stickers. We’re good. We’ve brought our gomugs.

Step 2 – Beer tickets in hand I meet up with Bro and we proceed, with gomugs (aka reusable cups) to the beer stand. Several different local crafts on tap. Yum!

Step 3 – “You need a cup without a lid” says the young lady. We remove the lids from our gomugs, put them in our pockets, and proudly present our reusable cups again. She smiles too and says “It must not be able to house a lid.”

Step 4 – We withdraw and consider our options. “A lot of these food vendors have cups with or without lids.” Says Bro. Not wanting to make the impression that we may be stupid, which is sometimes embarrassing, or considered difficult, which may put our beer consumption at risk, we don’t pursue the food vendor regardless-of-lids-possibly-reusable-possibly-not-cup scheme.

Step 5 – We move to the beer ticket tent. The one with all the cups and nary a lid in sight. We buy 2 Festival cups, without lids, for $15 each. During that short lineup I notice the best deal, which is 6 tickets and a cup for $60. A $63 value if bought separately. I consider trying to exchange the six tickets I bought for the better tickets and cup deal but . . . see above; embarrassed or difficult.

Step 6 – We return to the beer stand with approved $15 sans-lids-cups. We read the specifics of the directions to obtain a cup of beer and are diligently following them now. We’re getting pretty thirsty and don’t want to mess this up, again.

Step 6a – Fill (said) cups with water from the (orange Gott) cooler, which is noted as not drinkable, though not “not potable” (chemicals?). We fill our cups. We don’t try the water. We’re reading and following all directions carefully, which isn’t so easy for a couple O.G.A.D. (Original, not diagnosed and thankfully not pharmaceutically treated Attention Deficit) fellas.

Step 6b – Getting closer! We proceed to the beer serving table, with all our craft beer choices looming, and hand our $15-sans-lids-Festival-cups filled with undrinkable water to the friendly lad. Bro asks for an NEIPA, I choose a Sour. The happy fellow dumps the water in the cups on the ground and pours us our beers . . . because disposable cups are not environmentally sustainable but filling and emptying every reusable cup with chemically treated water is . . .

Step 7 – Mission accomplished! The Brothers settle in to enjoy the stage, cheerily sipping craft beer, their pockets $78 lighter, trying to understand, or at least not feel guilty about the beer vendors’ water consumption. That all fades halfway down the lidless-Festival-cup and completely disappears with subsequent refill(s).

The setting is mountainous, the weather is lovely, the company is family, the tunes are groovin’ and the beer is tasty and cold.

All this is true and good for the rest of the weekend!

Epilogue – Upon returning home and repacking the Westy/RV. I find the $15-not-able-to-house-a-lid-festival-beer-cup. I also see my favourite-sipping-beer-by-the-fire-with-lid-gomug. The same one I tried to present without the lid to have filled with craft beer at the festival. I remove the lid from my favourite-sipping-beer-by-the-fire-with-lid-gomug and try it on the $15-not-able-to-house-a-lid-festival-beer-cup.

It fit perfectly.