Tall Tales of Bex and the Rowdy Raccoon!

As most teenage boys do, we got tired of always hanging with a bunch of dudes. So one day we invited a girl to come hang with us, and we devised a plan to sneak her (and "non-alcoholic" beverages) in to Tyler's basement to make our weekend a little more exciting. Once the parentals were asleep, we quickly snuck down to the basement with our beverages and female friend and basically did what we always did; drank our beverages, listened to Tyler's basement jams, and played countless games of pool. However, fearing mentioning the same female name over and over again would cause suspicion, we quickly decided we needed to come up with a new codename. Brad? Mike? Collin? All logical, obvious male names we could have chosen, right? Well.. we may have had a few of those beverages and for some reason, the logical name we agreed to was "Piccolo" (super manly, we know). And that's how we became friends with our "male" friend Piccolo! Just don't ask how we managed to sneak "him" out the next morning, that's a whole other story itself.

For years, Tyler, Forrest, and Andrew hung out in Tyler's basement drinking bee.. er.. uh.. 'non-alcoholic beverages', listening to the 'basement jams' playlist, cuddling with 'Fish' the giant body pillow in the shape of a fish, playing countless games of pool (well, maybe not quite countless. There's a semi-accurate tally of every game played hidden in the rafters), and talking life and the girls that their lives revolved around. There's been millions of other dumb activities they've done over the years, but that basement was where the three of them bonded and truly became best friends for life. So it came as a crazy surprise when on one particular drunken night, it was realized by Forrest and Andrew that they had no clue where a certain door went. Tyler then revealed it was a cellar door or, to two drunk idiots, a portal to another world where they now had free reign to run outside to hang on the rope swing, run around like idiots, and, of course, to pee (instead of going upstairs to avoid getting yelled at for constantly slamming the door in the process). To a couple of drunk idiots, this revelation was as good as discovering Narnia!

If there's one thing Tyler loves, besides Bekah Forrest and Andrew, it's alcohol! It started with a ridiculous amount of Smirnoff "non-alcoholic" beverages in high school. Then it turned in to doing the exotic flaming Dr. Pepper shots in college. And finally, to craft beer when he lived in Chicago. But little did anyone know, those first few brewery tours in Chicago would turn in to a crazy obsession with home brewing. A few short months after returning from Chicago, Tyler had bought his first round of brewing equipment. Only one or two or dozens of bad batches later, Tyler was pumping out gallon after gallon of quality home brew in his basement; much to the dismay delight of Bekah. Like any obsession, there's peaks (like having over 100 gallons of homebrew in their house!) and valley's ("Throwing a tantrum," in the words of Bekah, when an unknown issue started spoiling every batch) but his obsession has continued as he spends many a Saturday brewing beer. Tyler has become a nationally recognized beer judge, a whiskey/gin distiller in his free time, and as his friends often refer to it, the best bar in town. So it came as no surprise that much of the alcohol you're drinking/drank at the wedding came straight from the man himself (after spending all summer stressing, testing recipes, and ignoring his other wedding duties of course!)

It started in High School. Tyler and Andrew both had girlfriends that were terribly unintelligent when it came to sports, so they thought it would be funny to make them randomly fill out a March Madness bracket and bet on whose girlfriend would have the worst picks. That silly little bet would soon spark years of torturous betting ideas. These bets have ranged from the harmless "loser buys a flight of beers" to the drastic "winner picks the loser's first born child's middle name." (good luck explaining that to your future wife, ACon!) The main betting has always revolved around March Madness and has evolved over the years in to two separate bets: There's the group bet with the loser often buying beers. And the other has become quite the thriller between Tyler, Forrest, and Andrew. After years of bets, they were starting to run out of ideas until they came to the only logical conclusion they could think of; combine every bet they'd ever made in to one, giant 'Punishment Wheel' with the loser spinning twice to determine their punishment. Some of the highlights include:

• Forrest with a "Honk to Make Me Dance" sign for an hour on a busy East 9th Street.

• Tyler and Andrew (And Tyler, again, with Bekah) forced to take 12 ridiculous pictures to make a calendar for their friends with

• Andrew wearing a hotdog costume, then going to a bar and ordering a hot dog for dinner.

Tyler went through a bit of a midlife crisis already (which, sure he's only 30 so midlife crisis might be too early, but look at all those gray hairs.. He certainly looks like he's in midlife crisis form!) when he *sighs* enrolled at that school up north.. Thankfully, being the smartest person in a school full of dumbasses made him homesick so he quickly dropped out and moved on to the next phase of his crisis; Jumping on an online auction and buying a giant trailer with the intent to convert it in to a house! He of course didn't quite think through this whole process and had to hurry to find property to put this new "home" on, which brought him back to online auctions where he bought not one, but TWO properties! He then recruited his dad and every friend dumb enough to show up to help (Andrew. Andrew was the dumb one that kept showing up). There, they had to clear out the property that looked like a jungle so they could put this trailer on. Sadly, people suck.. and after several pleas from the neighbors, the trailer was deemed too ugly for residence (we may be slightly paraphrasing) so Tyler was given 90 days to remove this trailer from the freshly cleared property. And so for the next 90 days, they spent every waking minute tearing that trailer piece by piece to salvage any spare parts they could resell. And thus ended the Crazy House Buying Saga. But don't worry, it didn't scar him for life or anything as he has ZERO issues buying houses nowadays and totally doesn't spend months searching for a perfect house with all the essentials like a moat and brewery already built in. Oh, wait..

Like all classic college stories start, Tyler was at a bar. Well, okay, back that up. Between pre-gaming at the old college house and drinking at the bar, Andrew noticed a cool Gamestop sign sitting out in an enclosed lot. Tyler, Andrew, Collin, and Mike then proceeded to drink as many of the beers on tap that they could at 69 Taps. On the way back to the house, the beers kicked in, Tyler turned rowdy, and the night ended like many, many others; with Tyler running away to play in places he shouldn't be, grabbing stuff he thinks is cool, and coming back covered in blood for some reason. Except on this night, that 69th beer hit extra hard, he became extra rowdy, and he remembered Andrew's comment about the Gamestop sign. So Tyler's bad influence kicked in and he convinced the three of them to spend the next hour squeezing through a fence, retrieving this 12 foot long sign (at least), lifting it up and over a fence, carrying it a block down the street, and in to the house where they had to remove 100 some screws to get it off the metal beam it was attached to. Unfortunately, they were not very subtle (they put the metal beam back for some idiotic reason) and the next morning the owners (and perhaps cops..) showed up, searched the house, and got their sign back. And thus died the dream of rearranging the letters to have "GSpot" hanging on the front of Tyler's home bar.

On one of Tyler and Forrest's high school shenanigan filled days, they decided they wanted to skip school. At first, it sounded exhilarating. One less day of getting yelled at for not bringing their books to class, a nice lunch that didn't include crackers and Grandma's cookies, and most importantly, an ACon free afternoon! But they quickly learned how social they truly are when they couldn't find anything to do since all of their friends were back at school. Ultimately, they ended up driving around, going to the movie theatre, and then, when nothing else sparked their interest, back to school to talk to people. When they showed up to a French class that wasn't theirs, their teacher, Madame Parker (who noticed they were both missing from her earlier class) asked where they were. Tyler nonchalantly told her they were 'skipping school,' to which Madame replied with some great advice; Hey dumbasses, if you're planning on skipping school, don't come back to the school you're supposedly skipping!

Being the single friend that's always third wheel get's old. So occasionally Andrew will drag Tyler and/or Bekah along with him to help be his wingmen. The problem is, Tyler and Bekah SUCK at being a wingman. It always ends the same way. Tyler will go pick some random girls (usually without consulting Andrew on whether he even thinks he should) to go talk to for him. He will then spend the next hour flirting with these girls "for ACon" and he'll return realizing not once did he even mention his friend was single. Meanwhile, Bekah will point out a cute girl or two, then get bored and demand Andrew take a million selfies with her which of course makes it look like they're the couple, not her and Tyler. All the while, Andrew get's too distracted babysitting them that he fails to find any girls of his own to talk to.. One of these day's he's going to make them wear shirts that say "I'm with him/her" with corresponding pictures of each other to make it clear he wants nothing to do with either of them!

On one particularly hot summer afternoon, Tyler joined Becky at her beach house (conveniently located about 10 houses away from Cedar Point) for a fun day of drinks and kayaking/paddle-boarding in the bay. After travelling a few too many miles away from the beach house (and probably after enjoying a few too many beverages), they realized the wind was blowing too strong in their direction and that it would take an incredible amount of effort to paddle back to the house. So, they were forced to get out of the water and carry their kayaks, on land, the three miles back to the house. But of course, in classic Tyler fashion, he didn't bring a shirt and didn't put sunscreen on and his shoulders were already bright, bright red. So he had to improvise once again and decided to turn the biggest llly pad he could find in to a makeshift shirt. And boy did those weird tan lines not disappoint!

With Tyler being a year older than Bekah, there were occasional issues in the relationship for the year when Tyler was 21 and Bekah was not. Nothing was worse than the day they went to a Twenty One Pilots concert with Shana. After a solid pre-game at Tyler's, the three of them headed out to the concert. Since Bekah was not 21 yet, she was not given a wristband. No big deal. That is, until Shana decided to be nice and hand her drink to Bekah for a sip or two. When she turned around, Bekah was nowhere in sight. Turns out, Bekah was kicked out of the concert for holding said beer and had to buy her way back in! Friend, please.

Collin and Tyler took a trip to Ohio U for a beer judging event. Bunked in one of the dorms, they decided to live it up (like were OU alums or something) and went extra hard the night before their judging. That next morning, they woke up to a scene straight out of the Hangover. Clothes were scattered everywhere, food littered the floors, and the two could hardly remember a thing. Hungover and running late, they had to quickly gather their belongings and head out to drink more beer. Unfortunately for Tyler, they couldn't for the life of them find his shoes. After stripping the room apart, they decided to cut their losses and go check out before they completely missed the judging check in time. When they got to the desk to check out, however, a funny thing happened. There, sitting on the back counter, were what appeared to be Tyler's shoes. Slightly embarrassed and entirely too confused, he asked the hostess if those were, in fact, his shoes. A shocked and probably slightly annoyed hostess explained that yes, they found the shoes propping open the back door to the building, setting off several alarms in the process. Turns out, a drunk Tyler had gone ahead of Collin back to the room but had decided his key wasn't a good enough way to get through the door, so he left his shoes to keep the door open for Collin. Collin had drunkenly followed several minutes later, ignored the alarms, and failed to recognize the shoes as Tyler's. And that, sadly, is how Tyler narrowly escaped showing up barefoot to a beer judging!

This was a night like any other. Tyler and Andrew just had a quick connecting flight before they were back home after a weekend of debauchery in Colorado with Forrest. Problem was, a storm forced them to land in Jacksonville to quickly fuel up before heading back to Tampa. Because of this, the plane was warned they were running late and needed to quickly move to their connecting flight. Instead of listening to Andrew and heading to the gate, Tyler insisted they head back to the security checkpoint (which was clearly wrong) and it forced them to miss the flight and be stuck in Tampa until the following morning. And instead of calling Andrew's cousin who lived a few miles away, Tyler insisted they stay up drinking for the next 12 hours until that 7am flight.. So that's exactly what they did. They went and closed down a Chili's. Then went next door and closed down a dive bar. Then bought tallboys and a box of donut holes at a gas station and hung out in a display shed in front of a Home Depot. Of course, that got boring too, so they left the donuts in the shed and found a.. ahem.. "Gentleman's" Club, where Tyler proceeded to give a waitress (not to be confused with a dancer) a shoulder rub in exchange for free waters. When they eventually closed that down too, they finally decided it was time to head to the airport; but not before making the Uber driver stop back at Home Depot so Tyler could finish that box of donuts! Finally, they made it to the Airport where they passed out on a bench, got their names yelled on the loud speaker, and narrowly avoided missing yet another flight!

Okay, so this didn't quite go down exactly how it was written in the speech. You see, Forrest and Tyler volunteered to get alcohol for the friend group since none of them had a great way to get it. Well, lo and behold, neither did Forrest or Tyler. They decided to press their luck and head to the Oberlin Walmart, pick out what everyone wanted, and see if someone else buying alcohol would buy it on their behalf. Luck didn't appear on their side that night as they couldn't seem to find any takers.. But the next thing you know, the entire Oberlin College girls basketball team walked in and was getting ready for their Friday night of partying as well. Tyler, being the corrupting menace that he is, told Forrest to "ask them to buy it" and Forrest, of course, confidently obliged. After a few scoffs and eyerolls, they agreed. And Forrest and Tyler being the desperate bunch that they were, gave them the last penny to their names as a tip for their troubles.. Desperate times call for desperate measures!

Bekah used to think she could hang with the big boys,. That all changed one Thanksgiving eve when her and Tyler came out that night to have some drinks with Acon and friends. It started simple enough, with a few beers and dinner at a brewery. But the night went on and after hitting every bar on the Fairview strip (all 6 of them), it turns out she couldn't hang. There were the dozens of selfies she forced the people she just met to take, and a bar or two that she doesn't remember, and the nice car ride home where she enjoyed hitting on Acon's designated driving brother (who, to be fair, was wearing a very nice watch that day). The next day was of course complete hell, as a hungover Bekah had to suffer through an entire Thanksgiving day, where her Grandma had made a rare trip to Ohio to celebrate. Somehow, she suffered through the hangover and made it all the way to the meal where she had a quick bite of turkey.. and then promptly threw up on the floor in front of the whole family!

Don't let Bekah fool you! Sure, she may be marrying a complete psycho. But it takes an even bigger crazy person to choose to marry him! Besides, she may seem innocent in comparison and Tyler may have corrupted her like the rest of us, but Bekah has had her share of crazy party girl moments too! There was the time in college when her and Lexi dressed up as peacocks for some reason and after a few, she may have gone a little 'accidental' commando.. And speaking of being nakie, there was one particular party that must have gotten too hot after a few drinks and a quick skinny dip in the pond was the only solution to cooling down! There were also several (yes, that means somehow more than once!) occasions where drinks, a body of water, and her phone didn't mix well and that phone of hers decided to go for a swim as well. And who could forget the time she decided to pretend there wasn't any alcohol in Jell-O shots, almost single handedly ate an entire tray of them, then turned in to a toddler and started sucking on the Jenga bricks everyone else was playing with, in turn dying those bricks the same dark red color the Jell-O shots and her mouth now shared? Certainly not the participants of that Jenga game that had to pretend that no, there aren't any Bekah germs on these. A few of the blocks just came in that same color.. Let's just hope that this true party girl version of Bekah comes out in full force at the wedding!

"When you fight destiny, destiny fights back. Some things, they're just written in the stars. You can try but you can never escape what's meant to be." None learned this more than the counselors at 4-H camp, when nothing could get in the way of Tyler and Andrew truly beginning their life mission of raising hell together. They refused to ever go to bed on time, instead opting to stay up late chatting, consuming an unhealthy amount of pixie sticks, and playing pranks on the unsuspecting campers in the bunks below them. They created dumb nicknames for their fellow campers, like 'Gummy Bear,' 'Mickie,' and other more offensive names, much to the dismay of those campers. They found a large stick that they named 'Boner' and they carried it around and whacked people with it. They essentially started a mini food fight at their table that forced them to stay back and clean the kitchen for an hour and even got the head of the entire camp to come down and scold them for their behavior. But the best was when a monkey-esc Tyler took a campers portable fan and taped it to the ceiling which was the breaking point of this poor camper, who got his revenge by throwing Tyler's shoe on to the roof of the cabin. It was also the breaking point of their counselor, who sent them to find another counselor to help him retrieve it with the message he needed help "because these two won't stop dicking around!" That became the new slogan of camp and, quite frankly, the slogan that might best sum up their friendship.

One night, while discussing some friends that were dating, Collin used a very normal term to refer to them as a "cute couple." Bekah, for some reason, found it odd that Collin would use such a loving phrase. Apparently, no one had ever referred to her and Tyler as a cute couple and was now curious why they had never received the same compliment. Collin, not missing a beat, chirped back that they actually have to be cute to receive the compliment. This then sparked an argument from Bekah that either they were a bad couple or a cute couple, to which Collin settled on the all to appropriate "Neutral Couple", a term that Bekah absolutely despises. So, here's to the Neutral Couple, may you be stuck in your neutral status forever!

Tyler and Bekah have been together for over 10 years now. And of those 10 years, Tyler has been to Colorado at least once a year. But somehow, Bekah has always found a convenient reason to never join in and visit Forrest in Colorado! A weekend of drinking in the mountains listening to music at Seven Peaks Music Fest? Eh.. she's got other things going on. Jordan is throwing Forrest a surprise graduation party? No, Tyler and Andrew can bring other girls instead. Climb a mountain and drink at a bunch of breweries? Nah, she's gotta work. Forrest is getting married? Nope, going to the hospital sounded better. Her years of dodging Colorado trips has gone from bitter disappointment to a major punchline and back again several times now. Guess she's just too cool to visit her friends!

Regular old parties where people show up, have a few drinks, a few laughs, and a few good memories? Boring! If he doesn't spend at least a month planning it, it's not a fun party for Tyler. For example, here are some of the crazy parties Tyler has come up with over the years:

• Live Action Mario Party (I love LAMP!)- Inspired by the video game, Tyler became game master, coming up with 20 different mini-games, designing a 100 space game board, and forcing everyone to show up dressed as their favorite Mario character!

• Pumpkin Trebuchet- Nothing says Halloween party like building a 20-foot trebuchet to launch pumpkins into a pond (and encouraging his drunk friends to try and catch these launched pumpkins).

• Barn Party- A simple party in a barn, except combined with all of his classic creations like giant beer pong (ensuring the balls to barrel size was precisely scaled), backpacks with a hanging pulley system attached to make drinking more difficult and more entertaining, and a giant Drinko game board (as seen on the Tonight Show).

• LexiGon- When drinking at a brewery just isn't entertainment enough, leave it to Tyler to create his very own board game full of weird activities, handcuffs, inside jokes, and, of course, forced drinking.

• Impromptu Pimp Party- A trip to a new brewery and a thrift store across the street. Combine the two, killing time sobering up at the later due to trying all the new brews at the former, and you get a group of idiots randomly showing up dressed as pimps at the next friends gathering.

• Handcuff Party- The most legendary of them all, this was a spin on the classic Edward 40-Hands. Instead of taping 40's to your hands, you were handcuffed to a random partner and were not allowed to remove the handcuffs until you collectively finished your assigned bottle of liquor. It was completed within an hour and a half and, not surprisingly, 6 out of 10 participants ended up puking.

Make Forrest and Andrew your co-best men, what's the worst that can happen!? Well for one, that embarrassingly bad speech and this god awful website.. But the real answer is undoubtedly the bachelor party from hell. Between switching destinations because the first plan was pretty much completely booked and then switching drivers midway to the second destination because someone had too much at the brewery pit-stop (not naming names.. *cough* ACon *cough*), the bachelor party got off to a rough start. But the party reached the pinnacle of terrible on the Saturday of the trip when the party bus they booked no-showed and forced Forrest and Andrew to improvise. After letting Dr. Bradford volunteer to be the DD, the crew went downtown to hit up every brewery/bar they could find. A few broken glasses should have been the clue to slow down and maybe drink some water but, shocker, it just encouraged more drinking. When they reached the 5th, 6th, maybe 12th brewery (who knows..?) someone makes a comment "Who the hell let Tyler and Forrest run off on their own!? That won't end well!" That statement proved prescient as it wasn't five minutes later that Andrew (who had finally found the best beer in the city and got to only enjoy one sip of it) got a call from Forrest. Turns out Tyler, while eating ice cream on the back of Forrest's scooter, got flung off, hit his head on the pavement, and was now covered in blood. Forrest quickly wrapped his sweaty, beer soaked shirt around Tyler's head, stole another shirt from a random passerby, and called a drunk Andrew (instead of the sober doctor) to come to deal with the cops and paramedics. Six hours, several staples, a dozen calls/texts pleading with his friends and future wife, a few pickup lines on a the pretty nurse, and a couple hundred dollars in medical bills later, Tyler was released back into Forrest and Andrew's custody where they made him a giant burrito and tried to act like they weren't the worst best men ever.. Sorry Bekah! (Oh.. and I guess sorry to you too, Tyler. We'll do better next time!)

Raccoons and wandering around at night. They go together like Tyler and alcohol! As Bekah (and the friends she assigns to babysit Tyler) know all too well, our favorite raccoon has a knack for having a few beverages and disappearing in to the night. And the places we've found him and the things he was doing have never disappointed. There was the time at Seven Peaks (music fest in Colorado) when he wondered off and we found him wearing a Davy Crockett-escque raccoon hat, holding a bag of wine and telling people to drink out of the bag and slap it in the process. Or the time him and Bekah made friends at a bar in Europe, and he left her to wander off. He of course returned, where he pulled mostly spilled shots of alcohol out of his pockets to share with his new friends. Apparently they were cheaper at the bar down the street so he decided to go get them and smuggle them out and back to the bar they were at.. How about all the time's he wanders off to go "wingman" for his friends? Or the time he left his own house party in college, wandered half way across campus, and woke up on the bathroom floor of a friend's house? And who could forget Bekah's 21st birthday, where somehow HE was the one that drank too much, ran away, and then found us, as he yelled down from the scaffolding he had climbed up, where he found a person smoking and decided to give a dollar to? No matter how many times he wanders, the rowdy raccoon never fails to entertain us along the way.

Lastly, a quick shoutout to several other adventures and stories we didn't have enough time/space to elaborate on:

• Tyler's time at Michigan.. Seriously, what was he thinking?

• The many, many crazy stories at his Annadale house and the shenanigans Tyler, Mike, and Collin got up to

• The weekly trips to R Shea for Lab Rat night and the countless games and beers we enjoyed there (We miss you, Kelly!)

• Many of the crazy adventures of our high school and pre-high school days. There were entirely too many to count. Plus we're getting old; hard to remember them all!

• Some of the trips taken with friends, like Nashville, Ocean City, Tampa, Asheville, Colorado, Vegas, California, et all.

• Chicago and the pizza blog, reliance on honey jack, trespassing into a creepy "they're definitely working on aliens or something like that in there!" adventure, and many more tales

• And any of the sentimental, meaningful moments we've undoubtedly had over the years. We know Bekah would have loved them and Tyler probably would have preferred it to all of this embarrassment, but ain't nobody got time for dat! But.. we will end it as sweet as we know how.. We love you! (and please don't kill us) -Forrest and ACon