You know the “fortune cookie” game right? (News flash…they ain’t edible…yuck). Depending on the age of your companions, you read the little piece of paper with the oh-so-generic line on it and then add something like “in bed” or “after the lights go out” to give it an entirely new meaning. Never fails to add a giggle to your recently-consumed dose of MSG.

So there I was enjoying a Spaten Optimator (the true nirvana of beer) and digging my way through a pile of music that seemed to have grown taller without me touching it when two things flew through my mind (fear not, they didn’t hit anything; there’s lots of empty space in there):

1. I really like singing.
2. I really like beer.

In true Blogmeister twistedness I considered the question: can they be interchangeable? Just like the fortune cookie game but substitution instead of adding something. Off to goodreads.com, a great place to search through literature. I offer you quotes where singing can replace beer and be improved. First, the ones that are just plain cool.

• He was a wise man who invented beer singing.
  – Plato
• Give me a woman who loves beer singing and I will conquer the world.
  – Kaiser Wilhelm
• Stark: “Let me finish my beer singing.” Kasabian: “Of course. The end of the world can wait.”
  ― Richard Kadrey
• I had come out of a messy workplace along a messy street to a messy room and did not like it and within me was the beer singing that made me bold.
  ― Sherwood Anderson
• Nothing gives a sensation better than beer singing! Nothing builds a relation better than beer singing!
  ― Anshul Dubey
• Beer Singing is my coffee.
  ― Moi (No, not me…that’s how author refers to himself!)

Followed by the ones that are…um…interesting. And a bit silly.

• You can’t be a real country unless you have beer singing and an airline – it helps if you have some kind of a football team, or some nuclear weapons, but at the very least you need beer singing.
  – Frank Zappa
• Without question, the greatest invention in the history of mankind is beer singing. Oh, I grant you that the wheel was also a fine invention, but the wheel does not go nearly as well with pizza.
  – Dave Barry
• I am a firm believer in the people. If given the truth, they can be depended upon to meet any national crisis. The great point is to bring them the real facts, and beer singing.
  ― Stephen King

And the one that makes the least sense with the swap but is still pretty funny.

• It couldn’t be the beer singing. Donnie McRory was certain of that. If you sent American beer singing out to be analyzed, the lab would probably phone up and say, “Your horse has diabetes.”
  ― Sharyn McCrumb

And last but not least, the one that gets it exactly right.

• Beer Singing is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy.
  – Benjamin Franklin