Larry Sheets, 1989 Upper Deck #254

This is Kevin, your trusted imaginary neighborhood blogger (that is, the neighborhood is imaginary...I'm a real person, I swear), with a public service announcement: Always store your baseball cards properly.

You see, I have lots of cardboard boxes and binders in which to keep my precious treasures. Most of my cards are even housed securely in said boxes and binders. But in my laziness, I've allowed a few of these binders to take up residence on the bottom shelf of my glass-top coffee table, rather than finding space for them in my half-finished spare bedroom, where most of my collection lives.

Perhaps you can already see where this is going.

Last night, I was sitting on my couch, enjoying a frosty Heavy Seas Great Pumpkin Ale and some leftover pumpkin roll from Thanksgiving while watching TV. My charming cat Charlie hopped onto the coffee table, doing a tightrope act precariously close to both my mug and my laptop. In my infinite wisdom, I reached over with my free hand and attempted to scoot him off before he could make a mess...and knocked over the mug my own fool self. Most of the beer soaked into the rug, but some seeped through between the glass panels and the wooden frame, onto said binders. I spent the next portion of my evening on my hands and knees, wiping pumpkin ale off of the plastic binder pages that contain my half-finished 1959 Topps set. To my naked eye, it appears that the cards themselves were unharmed, but I bet that binder is going to be a bit sticky and malty-smelling now. I also leafed through the 1989 Upper Deck and 1994 Topps binders to make sure that they were dry. I brought this all upon myself, and appear to have just barely skirted disaster. Still, any lingering effects will serve as a reminder of my folly.