Enjoying a laugh before things got too awkward. My recent marathon was only an hour away from the home of Harriet (Predawnrunner) and Lou (WillRunForBeer) so, accompanied by my DW, I arranged to drop by to say hello on our way up to the race. This was my first chance to meet “the Beers” in real life. Let me admit right up front that I can be a little socially inept. I get nervous meeting new people; sometimes my mind goes blank and I have nothing to say. Sometimes I manage an appropriate utterance and the unease subsides. Other times, in my nervousness, I make things worse despite my best intentions. I’m not convinced it was entirely my fault but my social clumsiness may have contributed to a couple of awkward moments during our otherwise pleasant visit with the Beers. My DW and I pulled up in the driveway of the Beers’ beautiful home. We rang the doorbell and there stood Harriet and Lou. I easily recognized them from the photos I’ve seen posted on this site. Their welcoming smiles made me feel instantly at ease. As my wife introduced herself to Harriet, Lou and I gave each other a manly back-slapping hug and said hello. Then I turned to greet Harriet. I’m not exactly sure what happened—and I’m not convinced it was entirely my fault— but in moving over to hug Harriet, I somehow tripped on the welcome mat that adorned the front porch and lurched headlong towards her. Instinctively, I reached my hands out to protect myself and ended up grabbing Harriet …let’s just say…inappropriately. My momentum carried us both crashing to the floor with a thud. I was horrified, of course, and instantly jumped up. Harriet had broken my fall, so I was fine and I apologized. But Harriet didn’t hear my apology. Her welcoming smile had turned to a grimace of pain. The unexpected tackle had knocked the wind out of her. She had rolled onto to her knees but was now hunched over, gasping for air. This was a little awkward and I no longer felt completely at ease. After a while, though, Harriet began breathing normally again and Lou helped her to her feet. Except for the pulled muscle in her back and the headache she got from having been slammed into the floor, Harriet declared she was fine. She bravely smiled, told me to think nothing of the incident, even noting it might make a funny story someday. We went inside and, while Harriet got some aspirin and an ice-pack, Lou showed us around a bit. We admired their place and heard a little about its history. Fortunately, the large decorative vase I accidentally knocked off a table was one they intended to replace soon anyway, so we avoided an awkward situation there. “No great loss,” Lou assured me as he swept up the pieces into a dustpan. “It’s been in my family for a few generations, so it was really time to get something new.” Our gracious hosts then offered my wife and me some of Lou’s famous beer. We readily accepted the offer, especially since I thought a beer might calm me down a bit. We all went to their basement bar, Lou poured, we chatted, and—still being a little nervous I guess—I soon realized I had chugged two pints of beer in less than five minutes, leading to a quick buzz and a few embarrassing belches. Lou looked a little surprised and diplomatically suggested that, since I was driving later, I might want to pace myself a bit on the third pint he handed me. I agreed, nervously chugged the beer, and then laughed as I realized what I’d just done. “Oops!” I said sheepishly as I held out the empty pint glass for yet another refill. The beer kept coming and eventually it did help me unwind. Now I started feeling a little silly for having been nervous in the first place. As the visit progressed, I even began having fun as evidenced by the fact that I burst out singing a few times when people mentioned things that reminded me of song lyrics, something I rarely do…and only when I’m very relaxed. For example, my DW asked at one point, “Harriet, how does your back feel?” Before Harriet could answer I jumped up, howling a Dylan chorus at the top of my lungs. “How does it feel? How does it feel? To be without a home, like a complete unknown, like a rolling stone?” I bellowed in my best nasally Zimmerman voice. I thought this was all pretty clever but, rather than laugh, the Beers looked startled and confused. I immediately suspected they were not big music lovers and may not have recognized the song I was singing. (This was later confirmed, since they apparently also failed to recognize my best versions of Hank Williams, Johnny Rotten, Pavarotti, and those guys who sang “YMCA”—even though I included the alphabet aerobics.) Anyway, I let it go, not wanting to make my hosts feel awkward because of their lack of musical knowledge. After each effort at musical humor, we returned to talking about running, work, families, and such, and we had a nice time—though, to be honest, I don’t remember much of it now. But eventually DW and I needed to get going to our hotel for the night. I asked Lou if I might pour myself a final beer from his tap behind the bar. “One for the road,” I said. “Sure!” he responded, looking relieved for some reason. I got up, felt light-headed from the beers I’d lost count of, but managed to make my way behind the bar. I’m not exactly sure what happened—and I’m not convinced it was entirely my fault—but I suppose in my unfamiliarity with bar equipment I might have been overly enthusiastic in operating the tap. Though it happened almost instantaneously, I remember it as a distinct sequence of events, as if in slow motion: 1. I put my glass at an angle beneath the spigot under the tap. 2. I pulled the tap forward. 3. I looked at the detached tap in my hand. 4. I felt the spray of beer hit me in the face. Somehow—and, again, I’m not convinced this was entirely my fault—I had accidentally yanked the tap off the spigot. In doing so, the pressurized beer contained in the keg beneath the bar somehow erupted in a powerful stream of alcohol that hit me straight in the face, catching my glasses and sending them flying across the room. I instinctively recoiled, flinging my arms backwards to catch my balance as I jumped blindly away from the fire-hose of beer. Unfortunately, in doing so, I backed right into the shelves that were home to a prized assortment of pint glasses the Beers had collected from their travels to various breweries around the world. I knew how meaningful this collection was to the Beers because, just minutes earlier, they had been telling some of the fascinating stories associated with each of the glasses. “At least they’ll still have those stories,” I was thinking to myself as the shelves collapsed and the beer glasses slid off and crashed to the floor….one by one…in an unnerving series of small muted explosions. Meanwhile, the pressurized beer was still spewing like a fountain and then pooling on the floor, which was now strewn with broken glass. I looked up and—though I can’t see much without my glasses—I saw that everyone else had jumped out of their bar stools and were staring at me. This was getting awkward. “Don’t worry, I’ll take care of it,” I remember saying as I moved back towards the erupting tap. I pressed my hand over the flow of beer in an attempt to make it stop but instead I just diverted the stream, like you would by putting your thumb on the opening of a spewing champagne bottle. The beer spray hit my DW, Harriet, and Lou simultaneously, sending them scurrying for cover to stay dry. It was too late for me. I was already drenched in beer, trying unsuccessfully to contain the flow of erupting brew. Fortunately, just then, the pressure began dropping and the stream of beer quickly slowed to just the regular flow one would expect out of a tap. Except there was no tap and there was no glass, so the beer was bubbling freely onto the counter and flowing like a waterfall onto the flooding floor behind the bar. At this point Lou intervened and—while I’m not exactly sure what happened—I’m not convinced it was entirely my fault. If Lou hadn’t insisted on coming behind the bar to disconnect the keg, I wouldn’t have bumped into him on the slippery beer-drenched floor, accidentally knocking him down. If that collision and fall hadn’t happened, then he wouldn’t have found himself with shards of glass from the broken pint glasses embedded in his knees. If he didn’t have glass shards embedded in his knees, then he wouldn’t have produced the piercing scream that so frightened Harriet, my DW, and—if truth be told—me. So, again, it wasn’t entirely my fault, but seeing Lou cry like that was definitely awkward. The beer flow from the keg eventually stopped by itself. I found my glasses and, remarkably, they were intact. We tied bar rags around Lou’s knees like tourniquets to stop the bleeding. And the Beers—ever the gracious hosts—declined my offer of a ride and assured me that they could drive to the ER on their own to get the remaining glass shards removed. While there, they’d ask about treatment for Harriet’s back, which unfortunately had been made worse by her startled leap to evade the spray of beer. In fact, they thoughtfully insisted that DW and I get going as soon as possible so we wouldn’t arrive at our hotel too late. All’s well that ends well; it was a good time to bid adieu and be on our way. All that beer and excitement had left me a little fuzzy-headed but I didn’t dare say anything about it lest Lou think I was criticizing his brewing skills. “I’m fine,” I assured him as I tottered to my car. After numerous attempts at jabbing the key into the ignition, I finally succeeded in starting my little Honda. I put it in reverse and hit the gas. The high-pitched revving of the engine quickly alerted me to the fact that I had forgotten to release the hand-brake, which I automatically did before realizing that I should have taken my foot off the gas first. With the abrupt release of the brake the car squealed in reverse, lurching down the driveway before I knew what was happening. In my alarm, I meant to hit the brakes but instead managed to further floor the accelerator, which only made things worse. I crashed into the Beers’ roadside mailbox causing a sickening crunch and bringing the car to an abrupt halt. My head lurched forward and hit the steering wheel and, though my nose was instantly numb, I somehow could feel a trickle of blood oozing out of it. As I looked up, I saw Lou with the blood-stained bar rags around his knees and Harriet standing awkwardly askew due to her back pain. They had nearly identical expressions of astonishment on their faces. Mouths agape, they seemed frozen at the edge of their porch, unable to move. That hesitation on their part was my chance to avoid any more awkwardness. I put the car into drive to extricate myself from the mailbox, slammed it into reverse to get out onto the street, and then back into drive as I squealed my tires heading out of the quiet neighborhood. Over the years, my long-suffering DW has become accustomed to my occasional social missteps. Now, after insisting that she drive, we were heading down the highway to our hotel with the stench of beer filling the car. She drove silently with a familiar look of resignation while, as is my custom, I tried to stay positive. I removed the bloody handkerchief from my nose, smiled, turned to her and said, “I thought that went pretty well, didn’t you?” She was quiet for long time before responding. “Yeah,” she finally admitted with a sigh, sounding a little tired. “It went much better than last weekend.”

Tee Hee! I can't WAIT to hear WRFB and PDR's version of the events. You're a hoot! Bill

I can only assume that Chapter Two will be forthcoming when everything else goes into re-runs? I can help line up a producer. DickyG

And I thought we'd have such a good time.

Tee Hee! I can't WAIT to hear WRFB and PDR's version of the events. You're a hoot!

This is way too much pressure -- I couldn't possibly follow this.

Now that we’ve gotten home from the ER, repaired the mailbox and wet-vacced the bar area (talk about alcohol abuse!), we have had a chance to reflect on our visit with Tramps and his DW. Despite those few awkward moments, we had a very nice visit. We’re greatly relieved that Lou’s Turkey Tetrazinni didn’t cause Tramps any GI issues during the marathon, and we hughly appreciate the beer offered in trade from Fredericksburg Blue and Gray Brewing Company. We will need it to keep us going until we get the tap repaired and the next keg in place.

My face hurts from laughing.

OMG - that is tooooooo funny!! i totally needed a laugh tonight - thank you!!

Let me know when you and your DW are coming to the Wild west... I will need to introduce you to a few of my storytelling friends. .