Finders Keepers

Finders Keepers

There they were! Six shiny cans of Heineken (or Budweiser, Coors, Miller or the likes). The truth is, I cannot remember the brand, but indeed my brothers and I had inadvertently uncovered a six pack of beer while playing in the snow near our house on Princeton Avenue in Salt Lake City one cold, wintery morning. Mother Nature had blessed us with another thick, fluffy blanket of snow the night before and I and my brothers were taking advantage of it. That year for Christmas, we had each recently received a pair of snow pants and a pair of stylish moon boots to brave the snowy, cold winter. So, there we were…playing in the snow without a care in the world, when to our amazement we uncovered this mysterious prize. Truth be told, we had wandered off of our property a bit and for some reason were trespassing our neighbor’s property, the Kazakis’s. Forgive the spelling, but yes, this was the same neighbor that had occasionally endured one of Mom’s squash popsicles or zucchini brownies, and another time where we Alley boys took it upon ourselves to solve the bee problem in his tree with firecrackers. At least we saw it as a problem (we never bothered to ask him if he thought it was a problem). But, what a lucky man he was to live next door to three clever, conscientious kids that looked out for his well-being and steered him clear of potential hazards.

Anyway, we had never seen beer so close up without anyone else around. We had really only seen this strange, frothy brew on TV commercials where some stud was scoring a beautiful woman or making a really great catch in a football game, or whatever. But, it was usually followed with words of admonishment from Mom that those commercials were a bunch of hogwash and that alcohol would only make us miserable. Besides, sunday school taught us that drinking beer was against the Word of Wisdom. Luckily, we were armed with truth, righteousness, and wisdom and knew better…even if other people didn’t.

So, we were faced with a dilemma. What were we to do with our newfound discovery? We didn’t know who it belonged to or how it got there. Could it be that our non-LDS neighbor Mr. Kazakis put the beer in the snow to chill for a cool, crisp refreshment later on that day? No. Common sense did not rule our minds…it had to be a more elaborate scheme, like some random, evil person wandering the neighborhood planting six packs of beer in people’s yards. Yes, that was much more likely. Regardless, a problem had been placed before us and we had to solve it. We couldn’t let this evil brew fall into the wrong hands. We had to do something with it. We had to dispose of it. Yes that was it…get rid of it so that no one else could get to it.

We grabbed the cans and snuck them away to our back yard. We couldn’t just throw them away. That would be too boring. Instead, we shook up each can, popped the top and sprayed them into our garbage can. We never knew beer could be so fun without actually partaking of it! The fun only lasted about 15 minutes and afterwards, we were giggling and reeking of malted barley and hops, which by the way, sounds better than it smells. It didn’t take long for Mother to discover our shenanigans, and quickly, we were educated on why beer might be stowed in the snow. The purpose, after all, was to chill the beer for someone that may actually want to drink the stuff…imagine that. Mom told us that while beer was evil, the people that chose to drink it were not evil and that they were entitled to their own decisions.

Soon after, we were compelled to tell Mr. Kazakis that we were sorry and that what we did was an accident. Yes, we accidentally opened up his entire six pack of beer and sprayed them into our garbage can…an honest mistake. Though disappointed, he smiled and seemed to understand our stupidity. If not then, I’m sure he later appreciated our concern for him…just like when we rid his tree of those darn bees.