Koozies: You Love Your Brand. SAY IT.

The Koozie is the worst thing to happen to American drinking culture...Something evil this way lurks.

I have a lot of crap floating around my house. Becoming a parent has only increased the amount of junk I can't actively get rid of due to the repercussions of removing a toy from circulation too early. I've been called 'Bad Dad' enough already and we haven't even hit the teen years.

When I do stumble upon something I may be able to throw out or offload on some poor soul, I take the win and pat myself on the back for my world shattering success.

While searching for some vague item my youngest has asked me for I proceeded to check everywhere in a typical weekend daze. In my futility I noted that one of the drawers in my kitchen is currently occupied to the brim. It is currently occupied by 16 koozies.

Sixteen!

Not pictured here, 3 Koozies from friends marriages that have failed. Keep on trucking.

I guess we've been accumulating these for years as just a matter of form. I have no favorite koozie for a simple reason.

I never use koozies.

They sit forgotten in that kitchen drawer like a grave site in the woods. Occasionally some poor soul wanders into the woods, falls into the open grave, and is added to the group of the damned.

The reason I never use them is simple. Their purported reason for existing is to keep your beer cold. However it is a lie.

It is a lie because what person takes over 10 minutes to drink a can of beer? 10 minutes is a long time and even for those regular folks who are not total degenerates they can get a beer down before it has a chance to turn warm.

It is a lie because outside of a tailgate or beach get together where you are meant to quickly drink and relish the good times with friends, when would you use a koozie?

And even those few, those sorry few who will kick and scream at these truths know deep down that they are living a lie.

There are only two groups giving out koozies.

Companies selling you a tremendously cheap product with their logo on it at a 500% markup (I worked in retail), and friends giving you a koozie for a wedding/event (as noted above) because they felt compelled. Something is compelling them.

I forgive the aforementioned friends as really, who has time to pick out shit before a wedding. I mean my groomsman gifts were a cooler that was also a stool, and a hollowed out bullet that was made into a bottle opener. I am not blameless here. I am taking accountability.

Don't confuse my naivety with the willful suffering that is being brought into the world.

The major villain are brands that continue to manufacture the lie of the koozie.

They pump thousands, millions, possibly billions(!?!) of dollars into brand management through koozies.

They spread the lie, the hate, and the fear that without your koozie you are missing out. That you are a piece of shit and your friends will leave you. That your family will disown you.

Knowing this fact may help you, it may not. Likely they will make you forget we ever had this conversation.

You will be alone in your struggle.

Your koozies may remain in a dark kitchen drawer just like mine.

Just like mine your subconscious will scream a warning to you as you walk by that spot. A soundless but felt exclamation that will cause you to stop in your tracks, frozen to the spot as goosebumps ripple over your entire body.

It is every fiber of your body crying out in danger. Something evil, hateful, and hungry has its eyes on you.

There's only one way to exorcise this presence from your house.

Drink your beer faster.

Do that and you may have the courage to rip that drawer open and dump your koozies into the Schuylkill river.

Let the water run over them. Let it drag them down into the depths of hell from whence they came.

And if days, weeks, months or years pass and you feel that presence again, like eyes on the back of your head, remember what you have to do.

Remember the steps, the ritual, you must undertake to guard against the koozie from ever returning.

Drink your beer faster.