Please elaborate on the scotch ransom.
Prepare for a story about blue laws, brotherly shenanigans, and just your average kidnapping.
My dad is the youngest of four sons who, when gathered together, conspire to create trouble where trouble is ought to be created. And this particular trouble began when they all became of marrying age.
The brothers are ranked in order of age: Tim, John, Matthew, and my dad.
John was the first to get married and it was a modest wedding with a modest reception in a rec center that is now a fancy country club. But at the time, it was kind of out in the middle of nowhere.
The three remaining brothers had to orchestrate the kidnapping of the bride carefully because it’s no fun doing it while everyone’s back is turned. So they positioned the guests like chess pieces across the dancefloor and danced her away from the rec center and into the back of my uncle’s dusty pickup truck.
John found out that his wife had been kidnapped when he received a phone call from the front desk. They took turns calling him from pay phones around town.
“We’ll return your wife when you give us the scotch.”
John had to go all around town to find a liquor store that was open and by the time he got it they had driven the circumference of German Township three times. “Leave the bottle by the door,” said the disguised voice of one of my uncles… or possibly my dad.
He left the bottle by the door and fifteen minutes later my uncle was greeted by my very dusty Aunt Jane. And they all laughed it off and it became ‘The Time That My Brothers Kidnapped My Wife.”
Except.
The next to get married was Tim. Now John recalled the kidnapping of his wife and not one to take that sort of mischief sitting down, conspired with the other two to sneak away with my aunt Samantha.
Tim’s wedding reception was in a fancy hotel and they’d all outgrown the dusty Ford truck, but the hotel was five stories tall. So instead of riding around downtown for the duration they decided that they were going to ride her up and down in the elevator
But simple solution, right? Just go out and get a bottle of scotch, right?
Wrong. Because this is the great state of Indiana and Tim’s wedding happened to take place on a Sunday.
And there’s no alcohol sales on Sunday in the great state of Indiana.
The only bottle of scotch Tim could find was the one that the bartender at the hotel was keeping behind the counter. But there was no way he was going to let his idiot brothers ruin his wedding, so he paid the bartender $100 for half a bottle of run-of-the-mill scotch and my aunt Sam was deposited politely on the third floor… slightly dizzy but at least not covered in dust this time.
There was a 10 year gap wherein none of the brothers got married and my dad was next. But he’s a man of stories in the same way that I am and he remembered that for the past two weddings, the bride has been held for ransom.
And they had one hell of a reception planned out- rented an entire bowling alley and everyone got free games because my parents are a fun-loving couple and there was no way in hell that my uncles were going to ruin a wedding reception at a bowling alley.
After the Best Man gave his toast, my dad presented a bottle of scotch to his brothers with a big announcement just so no one could say that he didn’t.
And my mom was not kidnapped.
Matthew chose subtlety- he left the bottle on the table with a note: ‘Please don’t steal my wife this time.” This did not stop his wife’s side of the family from jumping, fully-clothed, into the swimming pool.
Something tells me that my aunt would have enjoyed the kidnapping.
So no one in the family has actually been kidnapped after Sam, but no one is going to test the theory that it has nothing to do with scotch. So each wedding comes with a bottle of scotch presented, in some fashion, to the four brothers.
There was a long stretch of time where no one got married at all and it was kind of forgotten. The next to marry was my cousin Julia, who has always been a perfectionist and honestly needs a chill pill.
It was one week to her wedding day and we were helping my grandma move out of her old house when Matthew came up the driveway with a big box. I mean… a big, big box. It looked heavy. It sounded heavy. When he set it on the ground, we could hear glass bottles shifting around.
“I do not need more stuff,” my grandma said. “What have you brought me, son of mine?”
“My daughter has told me to bring you this as a peace offering to ensure that she does not get kidnapped on her wedding night.”
We opened the box. There’s 24 bottles of scotch in the box. There’s enough scotch in there for each of the brothers to have six bottles. There is so much scotch.
So needless to say, she did not get kidnapped.
And when my brother got married, my sister-in-law slammed a bottle down on the uncle’s table and told them to fight for it.
And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how traditions happen.
Now, we don’t know what’s going to happen in a situation with two brides, and I’m not itching to see which one of us gets kidnapped. But I think it would be exceptional to keep them busy with a scavenger hunt.
Because some fairy creatures don’t want to catch you- they just enjoy the chase.
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Mooncustafer 