May Two Four

I have always loved how Queen Victoria's birthday gets bastardized into the most appropriate name possible - May Two Four. An inside joke for all Canadians. Or so I thought. For those born and raised on the west coast, the turn of phrase is lost. When the people of this strange land buy a "case" of beer, they expect to receive a mere twelve bottles.
Maybe, just like their love of specialty coffee, it comes from a love of specialty beer, but a case as I have always known it is never called a two four. While it is rarely referred to, when it is, it's a flat.
A flat sounds a lot bigger to me. Like it should be somewhere between a two four and keg. Like it should cover a picnic table. It should require tools to carry it, or perhaps beerbearers standing on either side holding on to sticks running the length of the flat like medics on the battlefield or hunters coming home with a kill.
Regardless, I'm off to buy a lot of beer and in the spirit of the holiday, whether I buy it in sixes or twelves or twenty fours, it will get there in a case called Coleman.