My little brother was only a few months old, so that means I was eight and in the second grade. Mary, my babysitter and best friend’s mom had a film crew over that day to film a commercial for her daycare. They were recording us throughout the day to get good shots for the commercial. Mary had the incredible task of caring for a large group of children while carrying my little brother around and filming a commercial all at the same time. I got special mention in the commercial as I was the first kid she took care of which started the whole daycare thing. If you think I didn’t use that special mention to my fullest potential, then you’ve got another thing coming.

Mary had a small bar in the kitchen surrounded by stools. It was snack time and kids were running round with their sugar biscuits having the fun that only small children can have with a sugar biscuit. Me, I was just calmly sitting at the bar drinking my cup of apple juice and minding my own business. This being a fairly quiet part of the room, Mary had brought the camera crew over do some talking about the daycare. She was holding my little brother and said something to the effect of, “This is Brad’s little brother. Now Brad was the first child I took care of.” Those weren’t the exact words, but that was the basic gist of it.

Anyhow, as the camera panned down to me, I turned and looked right into the camera. With a big confident smile, I raised my clear plastic cup full of a golden-yellow apple juice high above my head and proudly proclaimed, “I’m drinkin’ Beer!”

Beer, apparently.

I believe Mary choked on the air. Incredibly, she did not drop my little brother.

Anyhow, the rest of the commercial was filmed throughout the day and I believe they wisely kept me away from the camera if I recall correctly. My grand scene did not make the final cut that aired on TV, but I do believe that Mary does have an unedited copy of it somewhere. I should see if I can get a hold of that.