She likes a themed party, so I am on Capitol Hill looking for a bottle of Malört from the only place in the city that sells it while she makes hotdogs and frozen deep dish she got at Safeway. She bought me a Jordan jersey, so I decide I’ll be dressed as a Bulls fan, not Jordan himself, because me dressing as Michael Jordan feels weird. She talks about the Bulls a lot, even though she doesn’t really watch sports. Growing up in Chicago in the 90s, that’s the sort of thing you talk about the rest of your life, I suppose.

The liquor store is a maze of shelves; it’s overwhelming, so I ask the cashier if they have what I’m looking for. She doesn’t know what I’m talking about. Neither do I, really.

I tell her it’s a Chicago liquor, but I’m pretty sure it’s actually Dutch or Swedish.

She says, Okay. And I ask if she can look it up, but they don’t have a computer. Only a register and one of those credit card readers.

It doesn’t really matter if I find Malört or not, but it feels wasteful driving into the city and leaving empty handed. I’m about to ask her for beer instead, maybe from a Chicago brewery. Goose Island’s the only thing that comes to mind. But just then, a guy I thought was a customer says, Hold on, and emerges from a nook of shelved liquor bottles, going, Hold on, I know what you’re talking about, and yeah, we’ve got it back here.

He’s smiling slyly, like I asked for something illegal or like I’m some dumb hipster who wants it ironically (I do) because he’s trying to be funny at a party (I am), because we both know the stuff tastes awful, everybody knows it.

I consider telling him it’s my wife’s birthday, and she’s actually from Chicago, plus my dad’s from Chicago, and all his family too, so I’m not just some poser, even though I am.

I consider telling him that my wife’s also turning 33, and she’s telling everyone it’s her Jesus year, which is a fun bit, but terrifying, because she’s just survived cancer twice and it’s not exactly comforting to tell everyone you’re now the age that the most famous guy who died died, and she keeps bringing it up like some punchline even though she knows I know that Jesus is all about threes, like what they said in Sunday School, that he works in threes, and her two cancers feel unresolved when you look at it like that, two cancers, both rare, both unlikely events, progressively more unlikely with each one, but still, religious trauma begs you to expect the inevitable, and so do you have it or not, the Malört, because neither of us have tried it and it feels right to drink communally, with our friends, our people, as a celebration. Thankfully, he doesn’t have to cut me off, the guy I thought was a customer, because he’s just climbed a stool and grabbed the last bottle of Malört off the top of a shelf.

I would never have found it there. I tell him this, and he shrugs.

He says, You know what you’re supposed to do when you drink it, right? What you’re supposed to say?

I almost guess, Amen.

Instead, I wait for him to continue, but he doesn’t. He just looks at me, not willing to give me the bottle until I answer correctly.

No, I say, I don’t.

And he looks disappointed, which makes me disappointed, and the lady at the cash register is probably disappointed too.

But he hands the bottle over, and when I ask, What?, he says, Oh, you’re supposed to say it’s good, because it’s not and your face usually gives that away, but you’re supposed to pretend it’s good, say it’s all good, and then you gotta try your hardest to convince everyone else you’re telling the truth.

I take the bottle and leave. Later on, we play the game at the party. Everybody flinches, everybody gags. Except me. I win. I always win.