Drinking Problems

My mom’s father had an adage that tickled me when I first heard it.  Besides all his daughters Pop Corn was the father of two sons.  Some of his older daughters had sons about the same age as his.  When other boys visited, Pop found that the amount of mischievous behavior increased exponentially.

He would say, “One boy is just a boy; two boys is half-a-boy; and three boys ain’t no boy at all.”

I wonder what he’d say about the mischief six brothers can get into.

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One evening during a family gathering, some of our sons were sitting around the snack bar in our kitchen carrying on a conversation about some of the lunacy they had gotten into when they were younger.

Travis finished the cup of milk he was drinking, so he went to the refrigerator, where he took out the gallon jug.  After refilling the cup, he turned back to the fridge, but was distracted by one of his kids.

While he was dealing with the child, one of the brothers snatched the cup of milk and downed most of its contents quickly before replacing it in the exact spot it had been.

When Travis got back to the table, he looked at the cup quizzically.  He shook his head and got the jug out of the refrigerator again, then refilled the cup once more.  As he turned back to the fridge his wife called his name.  He put the milk on the shelf and went to help his wife.

Of course, one of his brothers took the opportunity to drink the milk in T’s cup.

Travis came back into the room and froze when he saw the nearly empty cup at his spot.  He shook his head and said, “I would have sworn…” and went back to the fridge.  As he pulled at the door, someone snorted, then another giggled, before all the brothers broke out into uncontrollable laughter.

T pulled the jug out of the cooler and returned to the snack bar.  He refilled the cup, and started back toward the fridge, then quickly turned back around and picked up his just-filled cup.  He didn’t even look at his brothers but said, “Y’all are a bunch of jerks, ya know that?”

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When Scotty was attending college in Springfield, Missouri, he worked at Applebee’s as a waiter.  Our oldest boy has always been quite gregarious and had a way of making everyone he waited on feel that their table was his number one priority.  That led to good tips and also resulted in customers gravitating to his area of the restaurant so they could enjoy his well-above-average service.

He didn’t mind.

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One day, however, some of the brothers were in Springfield and stopped off at Applebee’s to get something to eat.

As they walked in, Scotty saw them and pointed to his one available table.  Knowing his health-conscious brothers would be drinking water with their meal, he brought a pitcher of ice water along with the menus.  After a bit of kind-hearted abuse that brothers like to dish out, he said he’d be right back to take their orders, then turned to check on other customers.

The brothers quickly drained their drinking glasses, refilled them, and drank that too.  They swallowed every drop in the pitcher so that, when Scotty came back and saw that they were out of water, he grabbed another full container and took it to the table.

Scotty took his siblings’ orders and went back to the kitchen to place them.  Of course, the boys quickly drank the new pitcher-full of ice water and waited for their big brother to come back to their table.

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Now, being the oldest of six brothers, Scotty has not only been the victim of his younger brothers’ mischief on numerous occasions, he has often been the head-monkey in planning their monkey business.  He spoke briefly to the bartender as he walked back to the table to tell the boys that their order would be right out.  As he talked, he seemed to absent-mindedly pick up the empty pitcher.

Then he spun and placed the container on the bar, picked up four full pitchers the bartender had just place there, two in each hand, then turned around and put them on the table in front of his brothers.

“Here you go boys,” he smiled.  “Drink up.”

It’s a good thing Applebee’s had a good, working bathroom that day.

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