A Free Drink of Rum From a 55-gallon Drum (standard:Fan Fiction, 1157 words)
Author: Juggernaut	Added: Jul 06 2013	Views/Reads: 2961/2020	Story vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
A night watchman makes a habbit of drinking rum from a 55-gallon drum.

Click here to read the first 75 lines of the story


drink at the bars; it contains a whopping 50% alcohol, the maximum 

amount in any alcoholic drink. Some people drink straight, some like 

it with milk and others with coke. The research institute has a permit 

to get 55 gallons of 100% alcohol for use in the lab as a chemical 

reagent.  Its use in the lab is recorded in a log open for inspection 

by the government authorities anytime to make sure the alcohol was 

used for its intended purposes in the lab and not misused mostly as a 

drink. 

On few occasions, when Juggernaut returned to his lab during 

late evening hours to check on some experiments, he smelled alcohol 

while talking to Joe.  As a night watchman on duty drinking alcohol on 

duty was a violation though Juggernaut never reported to the 

authorities since it was very mild and not a strong smell and Joe 

never was appeared drunk at any time.  The 55-gallon alcohol drum was 

kept in the chemical storage room in the basement of the lab and 

Juggernaut periodically inspected the storage room for compliance 

purposes. On one such occasion, to check the alcohol level in the 

drum, Juggernaut shook the drum back and forth with both hands to 

notice that the drum was light not heavy as expected during the middle 

of the year; Juggernaut quickly ran to his lab to check the alcohol 

usage log only to discover that almost 25 gallons was not accounted 

for; the drum should have at least 50% of its content.  To investigate 

this further, Juggernaut made a surprise visit to the lab late in the 

evening. 

“Joe, if you will open the storage room for me please, I need 

to check on a reagent,” said Juggernaut. 

“Yes, sir,” Joe headed towards the basement followed by 

Juggernaut. Joe opened the storage room and switched on the lights for 

Juggernaut to enter the room.  The storage room was long and wide with 

chemical reagents arranged on the shelf alphabetically with solvents 

on a separate designated shelf and flammable and extremely hazardous 

chemicals at a safe designated area. The 55- gallon alcohol drum was 

at its designated spot near the flammable liquids area.  Juggernaut 

while walking slowly stopped at the alcohol drum and shook the drum as 

if he was checking the level of its contents. “Wow, it was almost 

empty, I wonder how that could happen, it is only middle of the year, 

this drum should be half full not near empty,” said juggernaut loudly 

looking surprised. 

“I have no idea sir,” Joe looked surprised too. 

“My technicians have a key to the storage room besides you and 

if any one of them was abusing alcohol from this drum, I am sorry for 

them,” Juggernaut looked suspiciously at Joe. 

“Why that so, sir?” 

“You see, the authorities add some toxic chemical to this 

alcohol to prevent people abusing it, drinking alcohol from this drum 

could lead to blindness,” 

“Loosing eye sight completely, sir?” Joe sounded alarming. 

“Yes, complete blindness within few months.” 

“Then certainly it would be a big mistake for anybody to drink 

from this drum sir,” responded Joe. 

“Well, I will check the alcohol log tomorrow,” said Juggernaut 

getting ready to leave the storage room. 

“You have trouble with your eye sight Joe?” asked Juggernaut 

when Joe struggled to find the right key from the bunch of keys to 

lock the storage room. 

“No, sir, it was dark here to find the right key,” replied Joe 

juggling with the keys. 

“How is our hog doing?” asked Juggernaut as usual while 

entering his car. 

“Sir, I am under great stress recently, there was a glut in 

the market and no butcher wants to buy my hog and I have no money to 

feed the animal, my hog already lost half of its weight.” 

“May be you should consider giving it free to the butcher in 

return for some meat for your family,” suggested Juggernaut. 

“Yes, sir, the hog business was not good for me,” Joe sounded 

as if hog's weight loss causing grief to Joe. 

Juggernaut smelled no alcohol in Joe's breathe since the hog 

was slaughtered for free.  A dead pig was better than a live hog 

giving money troubles that perhaps lead to Joe's drinking problem. On 

subsequent inspections, the alcohol level in the 55-gallon drum was at 

par with its use in the lab and no uncounted loss anymore. Perhaps Joe 

thought it was not worth losing his eye sight from drinking alcohol 

from the drum over debacle in rearing hogs. 


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