Should I have opened the bottle of vodka that didn’t have Dan Akroyd’s signature on it?
Oh well, too late. Got thirsty and it was close.
As you all know Dan Akroyd owns a fine beverage company that puts high quality vodka into a crystal skull and then sells it to people. Personally, I’ve always been more of a Tito’s man, but when you find free autographed booze in your dead father’s house you take it and drink in his memory. That’s right, friends! I totally found two bottles of premium vodka in my dad’s house and I took them. To be fair to me, I did offer one of the bottles up to my sister who was helping me clean out the house when I found them, but she didn’t want to partake. More for me! Also worth noting here, I don’t have enough mixers in my house. My stock of La Croix is down to just Limoncello and that stuff is horrid.
Anyways, I’m guessing dad somehow procured these bottles during his time working at Specs. For those who may be reading this that don’t know what that store is, first let me say I’m sorry that you are deprived of the joys of a fantastic liquor store, and second let me say that Specs is awesome and it’s about the only place I buy booze. There isn’t one convenient to me, but I make the trek there because it’s the best.
Ok, quick aside and fun story from back in college. I was in college during both Hurricane Rita and Ike, and in both instances I attended parties themed after the storms. Margaritas for Rita, and regular hurricanes for Ike. In both instances the college was in the path of the storm bands, but removed enough from the coast to not be in large scale danger. But being highly educated individuals, some of the best and brightest the state of Texas had to offer (not to toot my own horn…), we flocked to the grocery stores and sent lines out the store for necessities should vital services falter. Also, being college students, we flocked to the local Specs for necessities of a different sort. The lines at both locations were equally long but for different reasons. Personally speaking, I lived on campus all four years, because I made terrible choices in high school which led to me getting a scholarship to join the military (insert face palm emoji) and required me to join the Corps of Cadets at Texas A&M.
Am I flowing off topic too much? Hard to tell, cheers to you dad! So, I guess dad somehow snagged a few bottles from the signed copies that Dan was signing, and being the borderline hoarder that he was kept them in his house. Now, Dan’s a famous actor, he’s well known. I love Ghostbusters and the Blues Brothers. He’s hilarious, have you seen the Bass-o-matic commercial? Comedy genius! But is his signature on a bottle of vodka particularly valuable? I’d say not.
Here’s why. I work in logistics, which is a fancy way of saying that I get paid to move boxes around. But not like, actually physically moving boxes, I do a lot of phone calls where I talk about how boxes are supposed to move, and why they’re not moving in a particular way, or how much it’s going to cost a box to move from point a to point b. It’s a living, it pays the bills. There’s worse ways to make a living, kicking boxes for one. Where was I? Oh yes, since I work in logistics, and I’m simultaneously trying to sell all of my dad’s crap so that I can earn my inheritance, I understand certain things about collectibles and their markets. Chief of which is that I have to be able to actually get the item into the hands of the person who bought it from me. And that is where things start to break down for this particular bottle of vodka. See states make a lot of money off of the sale of liquor, taxes and all, and they’re very particular about how that liquor gets sold and who is selling it. Which is why you can really only buy liquor from a liquor store, and in some places you can only buy it from the state (I see you Virginia). So, this here bottle of vodka with Dan Akroyd’s John Hancock is only able to get sold from me to a person in Texas, where I happen to live, and even then for me to sell it to someone legally it would require a bunch of taxes I don’t want to pay to get paid, and for me to check the buyer’s identification, and a bunch of other stuff I really don’t want to deal with. So I’m going to keep this particular memento for myself. In part because it’s far too much of a hassle to actually go through the annoyance of selling it legally, and partly because I need a stiff drink every now and then because of this massive pile of crap I’ve got to sort, catalog, grade, and sell!
So all that to say, I’m clearly drinking while writing this and recording it. Ernest Hemmingway, who is my favorite author, once said “Write drunk, edit sober.” and in his honor (and my dad’s) I’ve been writing this whole thing with a drink in my hand, and there will be no editing.
Thanks so much for reading friends! Please share this with your friends who might like some unhinged content in their emails or if they’re cool and have the Substack app. Also, is anyone out there on the Substack app and using the chat feature? I doubt many of you are, but if so let me know in the comments! Party up!