Last week, we had a Memorial Day barbecue. While I was cooking, I got a call from my friend Kevin who works at Redheads in Kings Plaza. He told me that a package had been delivered to the restaurant for me and that I should come and pick it up. Considering the fact that I don’t work there and don’t normally put Redheads down as my address, I knew something was up.

When I arrived at the bar, Kevin sees me and immediately goes in the back and retrieves my “package” – which was a Miller Genuine Draft neon sign. I was blown away. “You told me you wanted a neon sign, happy housewarming.” Kevin said as I stared at both him and the sign in amazement. I simply told him that I would love to acquire another neon sign, that didn’t mean that he had to get me one – but he did.

I have to say that what he did was one of the nicest and most genuine acts of friendship I have ever experienced – but his kindness comes with a price. For in his goal to do something nice, he has done something terrible. He has awoken a monster inside of me that I have tried my best to quell for the past two years – at the worst possible time.

From the time I had my first apartment, I have collected beer memorabilia. At first, it was nothing but a sign and some coasters, but in the summer of 1998 that sign and coasters developed into Paulie’s – a home bar that, as the column of the same name states, is, “equipped with four neon signs, a bar with four stools, and enough posters, signs, banners and pennants to stretch from St. Louis Missouri all the way to Golden, Colorado.”

My collecting abruptly stopped in October of 1998 when I moved out of Paulie’s and was forced to either throw away or sell more than half of what I had acquired and have had to live without the other half because it is being kept from me. So I have had no choice but to force the beer collector inside of me into hibernation.

Before I thank Kevin for his generosity, I have to thank Sandy. She was the first one who attempted to replace the glorious collection I lost. Last Christmas, she bought me two personalized Budweiser signs and a Bud mirror. While I was very excited and appreciative that she got them for me, I couldn’t fully enjoy them until we moved in together and I hung them – which I did about a week ago.

Then not a week later, Kevin comes along with this neon sign and then Doug, seeing the new beer stuff I have acquired, goes home and gets me a Heineken clock that he was ready to throw away to add to my collection. It was at that moment that I could no longer contain the beer collector inside of me – so he has emerged once again, ready to replenish the once mighty collection that has been so greedily taken from him with an even bigger and better collection of beer memorabilia.

Sandy’s gonna kill me.