Brats, Beers, and Keys

Over the years I have had many different 'careers'. I've been a paperboy, a bouncer for an 'adult entertainment' service, a burger flipper, part of a pit crew, a boot maker, and many, many others; some I won't mention here because I don't want to taint my well-polished image. I'm all about the people, you know.

One of the most interesting and just plain cool jobs I had was a promoter and organizer of autograph shows with professional athletes. This was something my business partner and I did on the side as we also had a retail store to run at the same time. We would bring in athletes to our city to sign autographs at a venue, and we had an awesome time doing it. Because the majority of the athletes we brought in were either current or retired Green Bay Packers (some Hall of Famers as well), we spent the majority of our time 'planning' at a local sports bar that was devoted to sports memorabilia, primarily...you guessed it...Green Bay Packer ephemera. My partner was also a legacy, in Animal House terms, because his grandfather was on a championship team back in the 1940s, so football was in his blood.

Our days were pretty simple for the most part...meet at the 'office' for lunch, which was 99 times out of a hundred a bowl of beer cheese soup, a couple brats, and a few beers (a few...yeah, right), followed by a few rounds of Golden Tee golf (which my golfing partner and I took first place in the first year there was a league in my city...we were pretty happy about that). Generally, it was a given that we would spend several hours 'planning' our work in the 'office', and we were usually happier when we were done than we were when we began.

My partner had this old beat-up Ford F-something with a 3-speed on the column; it wasn't pretty but it got us where we needed to go, and it actually ran pretty well given its condition. Still had the old aluminum keys before they started making them out of brass or whatever it is they make them out of nowadays. One day when we were ready to leave, my buddy went to the drivers' side of the truck which was nearest the curb, and I to the passenger side, which was on the street. Not just any old street, mind you. A two-lane, northbound street which is one of the top five busiest streets in town. There are speed limits posted, but people usually drive at least ten over, traffic permitting. My buddy opened his door with the key, and for reasons unknown to me and every other person on the planet except him, instead of reaching over and opening my door from the inside like anyone else would have done, he decides to toss the keys to me without telling me first (because apparently I was just supposed to know that was the plan), sliding them across the top of the cab, hoping I'll see them in time and catch them.

I didn't.

The keys went over my head, and landed about three feet away from me, in the lane of traffic. I started to step and bend over to pick them up, and something told me to look before I got to where I was going. I turned my head to the right, and HOLY CRAP there was a vehicle coming right at me, not even bothering to slow down any. Naturally, I jumped back against my buddy's truck, and I heard

<clink>

And then I did

O.O

It all happened so fast that I can barely remember what kind of vehicle it was. But what I DO remember...very vividly...is the sound car keys make when they're stuck in someone's front tire hitting the pavement repeatedly at 30 mph. All I could do was stand and stare with my mouth open and my eyes as big as quarters. Our keys were going down the road in someone's front tire and there wasn't a goddamn thing I could do about it. I stood and stared some more, and my buddy gets out and comes around to see what's going on. I pointed...and pointed some more. Then I picked my jaw up off the ground and started to tell him what happened. He told me to quit fuckin' around and give him the keys. I said "DUDE...someone ran them over. They're going north right now. I'm serious as a heart attack."

His jaw was then on the ground as well. We stood and stared at each other, mouths wide open, as if we were watching the Titanic sink to her watery grave. A few minutes later, we composed ourselves to walk down the street, he on one side and I on the other, to see if the keys had worked themselves out and were waiting to be found. They didn't, and they weren't. A half mile later we walked back to call a locksmith to come make us a new key.

Fast forward three days later.

We're in the 'office' doing some 'planning', enjoying our lunch (both solid and liquid) and this guy walks in and sits down about four stools away from us next to a friend of his. We didn't think anything of it, he was just another guy in 'planning' mode. A few minutes later, I hear the man's voice elevate, and he says, "You'll NEVER guess what happened to me three days ago. I got home from work and had a goddamn flat tire. Some asshole jammed a car key in my front tire...and those tires are only two months old!!"

I turn to my buddy with almost a crazed look on my face and and in a loud, semi-drunken whisper I said "DUDE!!!! LISTEN TO THAT GUY!!!" My buddy goes over and asks the man if he still had the key that was in his tire. The man says, "Yeah, I saved 'em just in case." My buddy starts telling the guy what had happened, offered to pay for the tire, and pretty soon the whole place was in bottle-induced hysterics and we called off 'work' early that day to celebrate the reunion of my buddy and his keys.