Strange Weekend Story #1 (a.k.a. Beer, Nuts)
Saturday night I went to a friend's apartment in the West Village to watch the men's Final Four games. My friend and I went to the Duane Reade on the corner to buy beer; it's the first time I'd ever bought beer from a Duane Reade, as to me that seems to negate the healthfulness of the stores' medicines and cleaning products. But anyway we bought a 12-pack of Bud Light bottles (yes, cheap and gross, I know), sealed in a cardboard container, and brought them up to the 3rd-story walk-up apartment.
When we got inside we opened up the box and noticed that one of the bottles was completely empty, with its bottle cap lying on the bottom of the box. Confused, we put it back in the box, climbed back down to the street, and returned to the Duane Reade.
Our cashier called the manager over, and when we told him the story, he eyed us suspiciously, as if we had quickly drunk the bottle of beer ourselves. He then told my friend to grab a bottle from a 6-pack in the fridge to replace our faulty bottle. As I waited for him to return, the manager said to me, "I bet I know what happened. The cap probably got knocked off and the beer evaporated."
Um, yeah, that seems likely.
Before leaving, the manager suggested that we check the rest of the bottles to make sure it was a fluke. Good idea. We ripped the top off the box, and sure enough found the rest of the bottles with sealed caps. We thanked the manager and trudged back up to the 3rd-story apartment.
As we then began to unload the bottles a second time, we discovered that one of the bottles, with cap intact, was only half full. Or half empty. Either way, my friend and I now wanted nothing to do with the rest of the bottles in that case. So again we packed it up, climbed back down to the street, and went back to Duane Reade.
When our cashier saw us enter again, she burst out laughing, asking what now. We called the manager over and showed him the half-full (half-empty?) beer bottle. "That's weird," he said. Indeed. We told him that we wanted to just get a whole new case of beer, and this time we went for cans, which I felt would be safer than bottles.
As the cashier rang up our exchange, the manager regaled us with more brilliant insight. "You know what probably happened? The bottom of the bottle got hit, and it fizzed up, and the fizz leaked out through the cap."
Sure, maybe.
We took our cans (without having checked them at the store, which in retrospect was foolish) and returned to our 3rd-floor apartment. Fortunately this batch of beer turned out to be just fine. But I doubt I'll be buying beer from Duane Reade in the future. Or drinking Bud Light at all.