99 bottles of beer (root) on the wall

So, one day I was out grocery shopping with Melodie. My job is to drive the cart, follow her to and fro, and when she isn’t looking toss a box of butterscotch pudding in. It must have been a hot day, one of about 20 we see here in Seattle, because instead of pudding I put a bottle of cold root beer in the cart. I had it polished off before we got home.

What came next was a turning point. I could have easily tossed the empty bottle into the recycling bin and been done with it. For some reason I was pretty impressed with the label on the bottle. I wish I could remember what brand it was, but since I didn’t know where this story would end up I didn’t notice. I simply put the bottle on the window sill in my office.

It wasn’t long before I picked up another bottle, albeit a different brand, of root beer; drank it and it too went into the window sill. Before I realized what was happening there were probably about 6 or 7 different bottles sitting there “on display”. Without any forethought or any planning I had unwittingly become a root beer bottle collector.

Within months my collection was too big for the window so I had to find more room. Finally I found shelving and put up enough to display 48 bottles. Well just the other day I had to double that shelving to accommodate as many as 96 bottles. Currently I have 59 different bottles on display and probably about 6 or 7 more in my fridge waiting to be consumed.

I have purchased bottles as far away as Hawaii, Alaska, Texas and California. One or two people have brought me bottles as well. All except for 1 I have consumed myself. The next question you might ask is “which brand is the best?” Well that is like asking someone to decide which BBQ sauce is best. There are too many tastes and preferences to come up with one winner.

We have had some taste offs, but I’ll save that for another post.