Summer has hit and to me that means one thing: concerts. Festivals like Bonnaroo, Lollapalooza, Pitchfork, and a slew of others. The music is usually enough to keep anyone focused and dancing, but some concerts sometimes require a little bit more. It seems slightly sacrilegious to attend a Dropkick Murphys or Gogol Bordello show without at least a little bit of liquor in your belly.

However, this can be problematic when you’re working an 8-hour gig in order to pay for rent, gas, concert tickets, let alone $4.50 for a single shot of Jack Daniels or a 3-dollar beer from the hassled bartender at the side of the stage. What is an honest concert loving American to do?

The only real options to gaining alcohol is to pony up your hard earned cash after you already bought your pricey ticket.  Or, better yet, sneak it in. The only problem is that concert venues recognize this as a very tempting option as well. Classic tactics such as flasks, bottles in coat pockets, and even pints in the sock are failing in the face of increased security and prolonged pat downs.

There are some quality products such as The Beerbelly, which is made up of a neoprene and a polyurethane bladder with a tube for dispensing. In layman’s terms, it’s a plastic bag you strap to your belly that imitates the stomach of a college senior in a frat and has a tube that conveniently dispenses beer or liquor into your mouth. The only problem with products like this is that they cost $49.95 for a basic model.

I’ve luckily happened upon a tactic while I was studying in Ecuador that works perfectly for concerts. In many Ecuadorian stores and gas stations it is customary that you drink any soda or beer you might purchase in the store or near the premises. This is so that the storeowners don’t have to risk losing the bottles which they can return to the bottling companies for money. To avoid this risk, they will give you your beverage in the equivalent of a “to-go sack”. This is simply a plastic lunch sack that they pour the beverage into and tie up at one end. It holds carbonation surprisingly well and can be drank by ripping out a corner of the bag and sipping until it’s gone.

The benefit of these plastic sacks is that it can feel very much like the fillings of any pair of briefs or a bra. It can be attached to articles of clothing by simple pressure, a twist tie, or a small amount of any adhesive. These bags can easily hold 12-16 oz. with very little risk of spilling.

I’d recommend using mixed drinks or beer because once the whole is ripped or the top is opened it is fairly difficult to get it closed again. This can lead to the bags being drank quite quickly, and a lunch sack of Jager or vodka can get you well past the point of enjoying the concert, unless you want to hear the band’s hot new track from inside a bathroom stall.

Finally, they come. Their wings beat fast as they land, blowing sand in my open eyes. Tears form, but I do not move. I lie still on the hot, sun baked dirt. I wait for the right moment.

I feel the first peck on my side, right underneath my ribs. The vulture’s beak slices through the skin and hooks it, tearing a hole as it pulls away. I know what it’s after, but I do not move. I think to myself that perhaps I am sweating. Perhaps my heart is beating so loudly that it will betray me, and the vultures will take flight. Foolish thoughts. There is no water in my body. My blood flows like syrup, and the vultures lick it up with their little pointed tongues.

Reassurance gnaws on my shoulder. There is not much meat there so this second bird moves closer to my head. It bites at my neck, right where the bitches like to kiss me because it makes me shudder. And do I move? Not a flinch.

And so comes the third bird. This one hops right in front of my face. Hunger growls from deep within me. My jaw tightens. I salivate. My eyes travel up bony talons to thick legs, to a meaty breast, to a juicy neck, and then there is the vulture’s head, haloed by the sun.

I am ready. I am ready to feast. My muscles tense. My mind numbs. My spirit roars, and just when I am just about to strike, I feel my eye being ripped from its socket.

I scream at the top of my lungs, and my voice goes as high as a bitch in birthing. I shoot out my left hand blindly and close around something soft and fleshy. I kick, and I flail, and I screech. Two birds take flight from me, and I yell out after them. Rolling over onto my back, I lie there panting. I feel something scratching my forearm, and when I turn to look, I see out of my good eye a vulture raking me with his talons. I bring it back and forth across my body, smacking it hard across the ground on either side. It makes some gargling sounds, and I laugh.

I let it go.  Laying there panting, I watch that bastard bird limp away. It hops high and flutters its wings, but one is broken, and it crashes down in a mess of dingy feathers. I laugh and crawl myself up onto my legs. I walk over to the bird and kick it. It squawks at me. It apologizes for trying to eat me, and I tell the bird that he is forgiven. I understand. He was hungry. It’s easy to get hungry in the desert. I get hungry too.

I say that there is no harm done. I feel my side and my neck. The wounds have grown shallow. I put my dirty fingers in my new eye and start to cry. Painful white light blurs slowly into focus, and I see a wounded vulture trying to take flight, now in new perspective. My hunger pangs in my stomach. I wrap my brown fingers around pink flesh, right above its breast and right below its skull. With two hands I pull the bird’s neck taut.

Finally, I feast.