Costly Pier-party

Okay, do not try this one at home.  In fact, it might be in your best interest to view a lot of these stories as things to 'not-try-at-home'...sort of a public service message.  So about 10 years ago I was living on my own in a 2 bedroom condo on Medicine Lake near Minneapolis, MN.  As was often the case, there was a party that warm summer night down on our large condo-pier in our secluded bay on the lake.  Almost every weekend all of us who had boats on the pier would bring them in for the evening, tie up, and inevitably somebody would start cranking the stereo on their pontoon boat.  Then we would dip into our coolers and pass cold ones around and pretty soon the entire pier was rocking.  We would hang out, show off the fish we had caught that day, flirt with the pretty girls in their bikinis, crank tunes and fish for catfish off the dock late into the night. 

So after this one particularly large, late-night pier-party I woke up the next morning fully clothed and spread-eagled on my back on the floor of my bedroom.  A sharp ray of sunlight was streaming through the window burning a hole into the side of my skull.  My mouth tasted like wallpaper glue.  My everything hurt...and what was that incessant noise?  The TV was on.  I sat up confused, looked around, and saw my wallet laying on the floor next to me.  Then I noticed that the TV was tuned to the Home Shopping Network.  I never watch those stupid shopping channels.  Uh, oh...what did I do?! 

I could not for the life of me remember the end of the night so I was just kind of hoping for the best and pretty much forgot about the whole TV-still-on-the-next-morning thing.  But then of course about two weeks later an incredibly large, heavy box showed up at my house chock FULL of pocket knives...$119.99 worth!  And I guess I must have "Acted now!" or was one of the first 20 callers or something like that, because the next day I got ANOTHER huge, long box loaded with some bonus swords...like decorative medieval dragon swords, I suppose for hanging on the wall or killing dragons.  What the hell?  I don’t even like knives and I have nothing against dragons. 

As I said that was about 10 years ago and I am still to this day giving away knives every year to my poor relatives as Christmas and birthday gifts.  I even keep a detailed list in the box charting who has gotten what.  I have given them to my friends, I have sold some to the kids who lived down the hall, I have even made each member of the Radiators take some home to New Orleans with them...and yet I still have a pile of these damn 'Frost Cutlery' knives taking up space in my closet.  Hey...does anybody need any knives?  We've got The Tracker, we've got The Vulture, The Apache, Delta Ranger, Eagle Eye, Magnum Force, and even a Magnum Force III!  They're all here!  Don't delay!  In fact if you act now, every caller in the next 10 minutes will receive a voucher for a free round of golf with Frank The Tank!  Oh my god don't think, just do it!