Unforgiveable

Tragedy:

NOOOOOOO!!!!!!

Let me back up, and tell you a tale of negligent beer-icide.

I took a trip to my favorite beer store to buy a gob of beer for a cookout I was attending.  To nobody's surprise, I was asked to bring the beer.  It was a fine selection of Michigan beers to fit all beer preferences; Atwater Block's Bloktoberfest, New Holland's Mad Hatter and Full Circle, Oberon, Founders Porter.

But then I came across a 4-pack of holy manna, hidden behind rows of other, lesser beers.  Something I haven't seen for months:  Founders Breakfast Stout.  My #1 beer.  My favorite beer forever and ever for all of time.  One of the best beers in the world, according to Ratebeer and BeerAdvocate. I staggered.  I swooned.  Then I pulled my shit together, grabbed the 4-pack, and made my way to the checkout.

I hid the Breakfast Stout myself, jealously guarding it like a dragon and its treasure.  I put it in the cargo containers in the back of my van, closed it, and set the rest of the beer on top of it.  I was then off to the cookout.

Fast forward 3 hours.  The cookout is over, and like a good guest should, I left the remaining beer at the host's house.  Folks, you never ever leave with the beer you brought.  Bad taste.  Leftover beer is a gift to your host. I got home, and started unloading my van; dirty grill aprons, messy grill tools, a few other odds and ends.

I returned to my van for the last item:  my hidden treasure.  My Breakfast Stout.  But here was my mistake:  I treated the 4-pack nonchalantly.  Instead of treating it with the reverence normally due the Eucharist, I carelessly half-lifted my cargo container lid, grabbed the 4-pack handle without looking, and hit the bottles on top of the very same container lid that I didn't lock into place.  The force of it hit the tops of the bottles, which forced them out of the bottom of the 4-pack, where they fell 3 feet to their doom on the cement floor of my garage and driveway.

There, they died a horrid, messy death.  Rivulets of dark-black ichor forming puddles around the shards of broken dreams, running down my driveway like the remains of some horrid murder in a back alley.  Oh, but this was murder.  My own negligence committed this crime.

My screams and cries woke neighbors from their comfortable slumber.  My bitter weeping conveyed a soul-deep wound that no amount of sympathy could ever repair.

I force myself to look at this picture again and again to remind me of the consequence of carelessness and devil-may-care attitude.  Let this be a lesson to us all.  Let my suffering serve as a warning to the rest of you.  Let this never happen to anyone or anybeer ever again.