The beer: Clown Shoes Third-Party Candidate India Pale Lager
The result: Chiefs win, 19–14; Trump wins, 304–227–7
The commentary: This is my two hundredth post. I am close to dropping an overdue essay regarding the importance of Trout Mask Replica (currently headlined “Tight also”), having reserved its epic for a weighty round number, but it can wait.

Earlier this week, the country I call home elected as its next president a man who colored recent history with the following on-the-record remarks:

“An ‘extremely credible source’ has called my office and told me that Barack Obama’s birth certificate is a fraud.”

“[John McCain] is not a war hero. He’s a war hero because he was captured? I like people who weren’t captured.”

“I am being proven right about massive vaccinations. The doctors lied. Save our children and their future.”

“NBC News just called it ‘the Great Freeze,’ coldest weather in years. Is our country still spending money on the global warming hoax?”

“It’s freezing and snowing in New York—we need global warming!”

“If Hillary Clinton can’t satisfy her husband, what makes her think she can satisfy America?”

“You know, it really doesn’t matter what the media write as long as you’ve got a young and beautiful piece of ass.”

“I’ve said if Ivanka weren’t my daughter, perhaps I’d be dating her.”

“You could see there was blood coming out of [Megyn Kelly’s] eyes. Blood coming out of her… wherever.”

“[Emigrating Mexicans are] rapists. And some, I assume, are good people, but I speak to border guards and they’re telling us what we’re getting.”

“I have a great relationship with the blacks. I’ve always had a great relationship with the blacks.”

“Just had a very open and successful presidential election. Now professional protesters, incited by the media, are protesting. Very unfair!”

“I have never seen a thin person drinking Diet Coke.” (I do like this one.)

In my head, before Tuesday, week nine’s post was to begin along the lines of “Did you vote for a third-party candidate? Did you throw your vote away? Well, I didn’t. But I did drink the beer.” I did not vote for Gary Johnson even though Hillary Clinton was a shoe-in. Massachusetts, a.k.a. “Don’t Blame Me, I’m From Massachusetts,” a.k.a. “Except We Did Vote for Reagan Twice,” was with her, but why risk it? I even took my five-year-old daughter into the booth with me and said, more or less, “You’re helping me elect the first female president… isn’t that cool?” It’s a cliché but I was excited about what this meant for her and her future, even if I didn’t think Clinton was much of a candidate or were to be much of a president.

Not only is none of that the crux here, I also never drank the beer. A cheeky name moderately tied to any old election was enough for me to buy the eleven-percent lager a few weeks ago with the intention of cracking it open once Clinton’s victory was assured. By nine o’clock, if we were lucky! That’s what the polls and analysts said, anyway, neither of which I will ever trust again. I know nothing about politics.

Instead, as CNN declared that Trump had won Florida about ninety minutes after I did (and two hours after reporting that the Clinton campaign had “increasing confidence” there), I had to keep telling a despondent A. that Ohio, Pennsylvania and Michigan were what mattered. When the first two went red and Michigan was looking awfully pink—about half past one at this point—it was time to go to bed. I typed “who won” into my iPad so that when I awoke in a few hours I could just hit enter and learn, formally, the bad news. Drag.

For several weeks, and this is our poor parenting judgment, we occasionally discussed with G. that candidate Donald Trump was mean, a bully and whatever euphemism I invented for a “fear-monger.” Had other parents put it into their kids’ heads that, I don’t know, it was OK to grab kids by the pussy then we surely would have been critical: “How could you?? They’re just kids, they don’t get it!” But we did the same, albeit with more humanity and soul. (I would add education if you believe the polls, which I no longer do.) Does that make us bad parents? No. Did we do something we would criticize others over? Yes.

G. woke up Wednesday morning and came into the bathroom as I was about to brush my teeth. She was half asleep with thumb in mouth, the picture of innocence. “I need to tell you something, honey. Trump won. He’s going to be the president.” I hugged her and she almost cried. Mama was still in bed so I tucked her in there, saying everything would be OK (it’s kind of my role) though not believing it. A sad start to a sad day.

The rest of Wednesday played out the same. The train ride was eerily quiet as I shoved my nose into Andrew Loog Oldham’s Stoned, for the North Shore was Clinton country aside from a few outliers (both wealthy and struggling communities). I resolved to “give him a chance” because I don’t have a choice. I’m not going to protest in the streets of Boston from nine to five as that seems to underscore general anti-Obama claims that unemployment is a problem. I’m not moving to Canada, as much as we love Montréal. I never believed Trump would ensure that everyone has enough guns—the modernization and/or destruction of the Second Amendment being my and A’s top-priority issue, which is why I was pulling for Martin O’Malley all winter over Clinton’s wishy-washiness and Bernie Sanders’s plain, upsetting indifference—or shut down Planned Parenthood. I also didn’t believe that lo, these many months, he actually wanted to be president, and it’s amazing how this remains a topic of conversation. Will he step down before January 20 and hand everything over to Mike Pence? It that better or worse? Worse, I say. Very much so.

At the least, it appears inevitable that Trump will let down everyone who voted for him by not killing Obamacare on day one, not nuking Iran on day two, not proudly calling someone the N word on live television on day three and not applying ceremonial mortar to the last “Brown Brick” of a Mexico-funded wall on day four. They will turn on him and threaten everyone unlike them—Muslim, homosexual, employable. Then they’ll go back to those burgundy pockets with their rusted-out dooryards and frayed American flags that stay out all night without being illuminated. Trump has both the House and the Senate but do they get along? Can all that hostility just go away in favor of common (?) big-picture goals? Will a blown-up party of Democrats reemerge as they did in 2008 and come on strong in 2018 and 2020 (under the inevitable “Hindsight 2020” campaign slogan) when, I thought, it was the Republicans who would have to start over instead? Will Massachusetts be a progressive buffer or will I and five other commuters be shot after buying coffee one morning? Is this worse than Brexit? Is America crumbling as foretold by past empires? Is my family safe?

As Ivan said Thursday night over beers before we decided to ditch the twenty-seven-dollar Helmet show, “What the fuck is going on with the Celtics?” Maybe nothing changes after all.

Up next: Fifty-one percent of fifty-five percent of Americans get on with their lives by drinking beer, watching football and maybe writing about it. For now, I’ll be one of them. Cheers?