Mystery File #1- The Crown Royal Incident, Part III
That someone had remembered something important.
"There's probably another bottle of Crown Royal here somewhere in grandpa's stashes. Lets look for one and switch the bottles on them!"
We all agreed on it and set to work. One of the adults found an almost empty, identical bottle in Grandpa's old, unsused work room. They split it amongst the Aunts and Uncles present. When the bottle was empty, it was replaced and put into the pouch. One of the uncles frowned and said, "The culprit will probably figure out that it's empty. Maybe we should put water in it?"
"I have a better idea." Spoke up another, grabbing both bottles. "Let's go to the kitchen."
Lo-chan and I followed him. He looked around in the cupboards until he found a few packs of tea and a teapot to make a pot of potent green tea. Once the tea was made and cooled down, he poured the amber liquid into the seperate bottle.
"Let's see what everyone thinks." We presented it to the rest of the family, who all cracked up with laughter.
"Tea? In that bottle, it almost looks like the real thing!"
Amidst the laughter, Father carefully checked the difference between the color of the bottles. "It's still a bit light, though. Let's see what we can do to make it darker. Maybe another teabag?" It was his turn to excuse himself with the bottles to ransack the kitchen for something to make the tea a darker amber color. That was when he noticed the old coffee sitting in its maker. He decided that it would work and began mixing it with the tea to get the right color. It took a while, since my father is quite anal about little, insignificant things, but when he finished, there was no way to tell the difference between the two bottles without opening them.
The laughter didn't stop when we replaced the bottle with the real alchohol to grandpa's stash, nor when we carefully returned our nasty concoction-disguised in the elegant bottle and purple pouch-to the shoerack. DYI even moved the shoes back to where they were first partially hiding the bottle.
We all left Grandpa's house that night knowing that whoever was planning on getting drunk was going to get a swig of old-coffee flavored tea instead.
I learned a few days later through the family grapevine that the bottle had, as expected, gone missing from its hiding place again. Everyone who was at the house that night wished that we could have caught the culprit red-handed, whoever it had been, but also felt the distinct feeling of satisfaction one gets from knowing an inside joke. We never did find out the identity of the culprit, and it remains the biggest mystery of the family to date.
Perhaps one day, after many years, the culprit will reveal himself and we will all share a laugh over the events that transpired over those few nights. Until then, I will wait for the next biggest mystery to show itself.
---Submitted with glee by chosho, 4/20/09----
"There's probably another bottle of Crown Royal here somewhere in grandpa's stashes. Lets look for one and switch the bottles on them!"
We all agreed on it and set to work. One of the adults found an almost empty, identical bottle in Grandpa's old, unsused work room. They split it amongst the Aunts and Uncles present. When the bottle was empty, it was replaced and put into the pouch. One of the uncles frowned and said, "The culprit will probably figure out that it's empty. Maybe we should put water in it?"
"I have a better idea." Spoke up another, grabbing both bottles. "Let's go to the kitchen."
Lo-chan and I followed him. He looked around in the cupboards until he found a few packs of tea and a teapot to make a pot of potent green tea. Once the tea was made and cooled down, he poured the amber liquid into the seperate bottle.
"Let's see what everyone thinks." We presented it to the rest of the family, who all cracked up with laughter.
"Tea? In that bottle, it almost looks like the real thing!"
Amidst the laughter, Father carefully checked the difference between the color of the bottles. "It's still a bit light, though. Let's see what we can do to make it darker. Maybe another teabag?" It was his turn to excuse himself with the bottles to ransack the kitchen for something to make the tea a darker amber color. That was when he noticed the old coffee sitting in its maker. He decided that it would work and began mixing it with the tea to get the right color. It took a while, since my father is quite anal about little, insignificant things, but when he finished, there was no way to tell the difference between the two bottles without opening them.
The laughter didn't stop when we replaced the bottle with the real alchohol to grandpa's stash, nor when we carefully returned our nasty concoction-disguised in the elegant bottle and purple pouch-to the shoerack. DYI even moved the shoes back to where they were first partially hiding the bottle.
We all left Grandpa's house that night knowing that whoever was planning on getting drunk was going to get a swig of old-coffee flavored tea instead.
I learned a few days later through the family grapevine that the bottle had, as expected, gone missing from its hiding place again. Everyone who was at the house that night wished that we could have caught the culprit red-handed, whoever it had been, but also felt the distinct feeling of satisfaction one gets from knowing an inside joke. We never did find out the identity of the culprit, and it remains the biggest mystery of the family to date.
Perhaps one day, after many years, the culprit will reveal himself and we will all share a laugh over the events that transpired over those few nights. Until then, I will wait for the next biggest mystery to show itself.
---Submitted with glee by chosho, 4/20/09----