Top Shelf Stories
In a world that often shuns the uncomfortable, we embrace it with open arms—and open laughs. Our candid narratives around our stories assure you that awkwardness is a shared human experience. Tune in, enjoy the ride, and maybe learn a thing or two.
Top Shelf Stories
We Opened The Rare Bourbon And Still Felt Cheated
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We start with a rare bourbon gift that accidentally sparks real jealousy and a hard question about who gets treated like the favorite. Then we spiral into parenting, Christmas traditions, and why trying to keep everything “equal” can teach kids the wrong lesson.
• gift giving turning into an unspoken scoreboard between friends
• a campground bike purchase showing how fairness rules get weaponized
• why kids remember everything and adults pretend they do not
• teaching “life isn’t fair” without raising selfish kids
• Christmas present counts, big gifts, and holiday overload
• grandkid gift math, white elephant chaos, and luck of the draw
• how strict fairness can create possessive habits at home
Top shelf stories every Tuesday. Like, comment, subscribe. All that
Intro Bottles And Gift Grudge
Top Shelf Stories with Jay, Chris, and Tony. Unfortunately, I'm not ready yet. I need a minute. No, your minute is done, bitch. Welcome to Top Shelf Stories. His name is Tony. He's our host tonight. He's not ready. We got Jay over there, and I'm Chris. And we're here in the podcast studio. I'm staring at a bottle of Eagle Rare and a bottle of Balantons. Chris, for you, who knows? Be jealous for you, who don't. I don't have time to teach you. I want to say something quick though. Chris uh was on a cruise, and you might hear this story one day or you might not. But he was on a cruise. He bought Tony a present and he didn't buy me shit. He's like, I know Jay. He probably wouldn't even like this. I'm a drinker. And he bought Tony alcohol, and Tony doesn't drink. For those in the know, those are bottles of alcohol you don't really drink. So I want to I want to know. I want to know collectors. Who likes who more? But the first thing I did was popped it open. Yep. We drank it. It's the first thing. I don't I don't know that I've ever been more appreciative of a gift. I'm not saying it wasn't appreciated. I'm saying there's two people in this equation. I mean, well, who could at least got me a who buys the tech guy something like a nice gift? Bought me a magnet. You buy the host something. You know what I'm saying? Every time my grandparents is looking for more airtime on this podcast. So obviously he chose right. Every time my grandparents went on vacation, they came home and brought me a little souvenir. Yeah, like a magnet. Yeah. You're like my grandfather. Pizza cutter that says I love Alaska. Didn't love me. Like a grandfather that didn't love me and only bought it for someone else. So as I was walking out of the house, I was walking out of the house uh today. I told the wife, I'm like, hey. Is Jay gonna hate me for not buying him a present? Yes, he will. I'm going into this podcast and I've impulsively bought Tony a bottle of booze. And I'm gonna go in with two bottles of booze. And I'm gonna let him pick which one he wants. And she's like, oh cool. And then Jay gets the other one, right? Did you say that? And I was like, well, no. See, that's the thing. I've actually the reason I'm talking about it with you is that I'm actually having a problem. I'm thinking to myself, man, I'm getting something, Tony. I just was an impulse. And then I didn't get anything for Jay. But I don't know why I would need to. He's just gonna be present when I give the gift. It's not like I have to. And she's like, he's gonna get mad simply for the show. She was fine. She was a hilarious because she's a listener. You're she was right because I actually didn't say anything. Yeah, he didn't say anything for the last hour and a half. We've been hanging out while we were trying to do tech things. No, we could tell you were salty. A little bit, yeah. I felt the feeling in my tummy. My tummy got all tingly, and like I felt like I should say something, but uh I'm gonna bring it up on the podcast just because it's that's perfect. It's about she knew it. So our listeners are getting to know you, Jay. My wife You know, this is like when you go when you go to your like parents' house and then they hand your brother something, and you're like, well, woo, woo. And and it's something you you you're like, well, I I also would like that. And they're like, Oh, I didn't think you'd be into it. Dude, my wife is so much like that. If it's not fair, you don't give one kid something and not the other. I always do. Matter of fact, that's fucking
The Bike Story And Fairness Traps
not fair. That just came up in in a big conversation because one of my best friends has ruined the way he's raised his daughters. That's not very nice to say. It's not, but I I've been telling him for more than six years. Like, what you're doing is a really fucking bad idea, and I know it seems right now, but you're gonna pay for this like in a very bad way later. So explain it, what? So uh so it's uh it's my friend that I camp with, he has he has two girls. Uh right now they're 10 and 12. And w we kind of have this tradition several times throughout the year. We go to this flea market and we walk through, and there's you know, people selling all kinds of shit, and his one daughter, you know, both his kids had a bike, right? And his one daughter broke her bike, or she grew out of it. You know, she was ready for the next size on it. I mean, that's totally different than breaking it, but okay. Yeah, so she couldn't use that old bike anymore, it was too small, whatever. So she needed a new bike, and he found one at the flea market, and it was the perfect bike, you know, for for being at the campground. It's not like her cruising the neighborhood trying to impress people bike, this is just her I'm gonna get over to the jumpy pillow bike with all the rest of the kids that already have a bike. And it was barely used, and it was like ten dollars. And I'm like, you need to get her that bike. He's like, I can't get her that bike because they don't have a second one for the other daughter. And I said, But the other daughter has a bike. He goes, Yeah, but that's not how it works. You can't get one a new bike and not get the other one a new bike. And I'm like, you absolutely can. This is gonna be fucking very problematic for you later on in life. You will not ever be able to buy one daughter something and not the other. And it's gonna be a problem because they're different people. You know, just because they're sisters doesn't mean that they're always gonna want the same thing, but you're gonna have to buy two of them just because one can't have something, and now they're 10 and 12. And and this is like an everyday thing. Yeah, this is like an everyday thing. Like one of them can't have a different pillow than the other one. One can't sit in a different chair because this one's her chair, this one's their chair. So he's going through all kinds of problems about this. So I've always I've always got my kids things individually to explain to them that things aren't always gonna be fair. Like sometimes one's gonna get more, sometimes one's gonna get less, sometimes somebody's gonna get something and the other one's not gonna get anything. What if what if one keeps getting more and one keeps getting less? Then the other one knows that that one's my favorite. Well, actually, then they both know. Yeah, how do you keep track of what because kids are not dumb? But that's a then that's your problem because kids are not dumb. Kids' fucking memories are so insane. I asked my kid, uh I don't know what I asked him, but he fucking remembered something from months ago that I said to him about going to do, and he's like, Dad, remember saying this to me two months ago about we were gonna do this and that? And I was like, What was it drunk? Probably no, uh maybe I was, but he remember they remember you can't remember, they can remember. So you give someone one kid something that other kid you didn't give. No, but they won't know. But that's the thing. I'm setting a standard that they're not always gonna get the same thing, right? One's sometimes, sometimes somebody's gonna get the better end of the you know every kid takes score, you're not taking score because you can't remember, is what I'm saying. No, that's what I'm teaching my kids. There is no score. Sometimes I only have one kid, but don't you want your kids competing for your love in a score system? That you want them kind of to figure out the scores so they do shit better, and that's how they do it. That is how they do it. They do it because you have to reverse the game on them, but the kids know you won't remember. That's the thing. Kids will not they will know you're uh my dad. My dad's not gonna remember that he gave uh me something this day and gave two things to him this day, and then 25 days later, still gave me that one thing and then gave the other brother two things. So I'm still down two things. Yeah. And it it really shouldn't matter to you. I'm saying it does to the children. I think one of the best things in life to learn is that it doesn't matter what the other guy that's not fair, like life isn't fair, like that's what we learn. It's not that life isn't fair, but it doesn't matter what the other person, even if they're your brother, has that you do or don't have. It's not a s like there's no score. You know, just there isn't a keep score. Just for instance, one of my kids better looking than the other kid. That changes with age, though. So so so probably when they get married, one's gonna have a better quality hoe than the other. I've seen both your kids. I think they look pretty neutral. What's the other one? But I'm saying, like, what? So if one's gonna get a hot wife, the other one's gonna be like, this isn't fair, dad. You need to help me find a hotter wife. That is terrible. That is not what I'm saying. Do you expect when your kids get older? Like, if one kid wants to be a tile man and the other one wants to be like a fucking stock trader or something, and he made a big trade and made a bunch of money and they're supposed to compete. Still, that's uh totally separate and different from what I'm what I'm saying. Not really. Once it becomes a robbery, listen, that's an achievement. Something giving you achievement. Something giving someone giving you something is not an achievement unless you achieve it if selling stocks is an achievement? You getting lucky, and the other guy who works his ass off as a style man is not achieving. So you're saying the one kid should kiss more ass to the death. If one wants to kiss ass, then other one should the one that is more of a dickhead should be uh here's the thing. This this is just this is a prime example. So last weekend one's uglier than the other. I want to know which one you think. So last weekend, I can't disclose that. Last weekend the ugly one went up to the waitress and asked for a cup of coffee or a cup of tea. That's funny. So last weekend I took one of my kids on a vacation.
Scorekeeping Kids And Life Lessons
And I left the other one at home. Sometimes that makes a difference from uh the the age. Like your kids are what uh six, seven years apart? Six? That makes a difference. Some kid the the younger one knows he can't go. No, no, no, no. So that's the thing. I took I took the older one because the younger one wouldn't have been able to deal with this trip. Yeah. But the younger one, but the younger one, so it was a fishing trip. We went out of state on a fishing trip for four. The young well, it was a gift. No, yeah, a tangible gift. A dream fishing trip to make a core memory that's gonna be with him for the rest of his life. Okay, fine, whatever. I took I took and he hated it, he didn't tell you the truth. I took my youngest brother on the same trip 22 years ago when he was the same age as my son. Did you stay in the same motel? You know, funny enough, the American funny enough, I desperately tried when I was planning this trip. I desperately tried to figure out which hotel I stayed in because I couldn't remember the name of it. But I remember what it looked like. I went through every resort. Zip it through Google World or whatever. I went through every picture of every resort on this lake and could not find it. And when I went down there, we stayed at the one that I thought it could be. And as soon as we got there, I'm like, this isn't it. And I was talking to a guy in the bait store, and he's like, Oh, you stayed at a place called Cypress Point in 2022. That thing got taken out by a tornado. Shit, shit. Quick question. Family feud, other day. What is the first thing you do when you get in the hotel room? What is the number one answer? That you do when you first get in. Your hotel room. Look in the bathroom. Jerk off. No, seriously, Tony. Uh first thing when I get into the I sit on the edge of the bed and see how uncomfortable it's gonna be. Well, both of you have not even close. It's turn on the air conditioning. Really? Yeah, that was with the family feed questions. Okay, anyway. Besides the point. Check for check for bed bugs. Yeah. Check for blood stains on the on the sheets. And then I look for nudie megs between the mattress and the box spring. This isn't your kids' house or your kids' room. I don't remember as a kid if I was treated 50-50, but I'm pretty sure I wasn't because when I started being around my wife and like the first couple Christmases, especially after we get married, got married, I started really realizing, and Katie would tell me these stories, but then I became after we were married for sure, I became part of the everything's gotta be equal amount. Dude. Even for like her, they would her parents give the best Christmas gifts. I want to caveat with that. Start off, they do. Better than your rich dad. They they do a great job of giving off giving Christmas gifts. Why does that bother you? They tony keeps making a joke. They ended up dividing it. They divide everything out equally. And I I guess I never even knew that was a thing until then. And it seems like now that I'm older and have kids and have friends who have kids who have more than one, because I don't have this challenge, I can give out equally every time. It's 100%. Can I ask you a question, Chris? Did your wife uh present this equation to you? Like, did your wife open your eyes to this? Yes. My wife did the same fucking thing. She's like, are you real? She's like, Are you do you see what she gave him? And she didn't give my kid? Your mom gave Jaden present fifty dollars. And I don't get that. The present from our kid was twenty-six. No, see, yeah, that's the thing. Like, oh I see I didn't see shit. Yeah, that's the I don't I was drinking in the core. Yeah, so that is a new to me. It's I I mean, I didn't literally didn't know that that was like a thing. And I had at grew uh I have two siblings, but I grew up with my brother. Because my sister wasn't born until I was like seven, sixteen, I think. Sixteen. How old is your sister? No. Maybe it was 14, but she's 32. No, she's 24 or something. Way off. I'm way off, probably, which is embarrassing, but you'll edit this out like you do most of the time. Nope. Anything you say is in the podcast. I do not listen to the podcast before publishing it. Never. No, there's a 19-year age. Yeah, I think 19 years. I don't know. It's it's always been a thing for me where um like I want I want to get or give what whatever that person deserves or is gonna like or whatever. So like if if my 13-year-old really wants an electric scooter, which was last year's Christmas present, he wanted an electric scooter, it's all he wanted. It's still wrapped up in the closet, isn't it? So no, he actually drives it all summer. Um but you know, that's the thing. It's like I get him the electric scooter, whatever, it's four hundred bucks. That doesn't mean I run out and spend four hundred dollars on the other kid because then it's gonna be fair. It's well, that kid wanted a fucking nerf gun and okay, that uh fucking teeter totter for the backyard. And it's like that thing might be a thousand dollars, it might be a hundred dollars. I don't really give a fuck.
Christmas Gift Math And Present Counts
That's the thing he wants. At that aspect, yes, that makes sense. If you so at uh on on Christmas before Christmas Day, we count the presents. Each kid has to have the same amount of presents. That's fucking retarded. Okay, listen, you're opening pre- Okay, how do you open presents on Christmas Day? You don't do one at a time, or everyone just fucking tears them apart. How do you open them? I don't know. I don't really pay attention to what you know how you open them. Get the fuck out of here. You've been doing it for 40 something years. I've only been doing it for 20. Dude, our kids our kids, uh our kids, and this kind of makes me sick, and we have a fucking conversation about this every year, and nothing changes. I I tell my wife, I'm like, we're not doing this next year. Like, because she does all the shopping. Not doing what? If there's if there's like everything, if there's a big gift or something, I'll usually be in charge of doing the legwork for it. We're getting the kid a riding more. But everyone does this. But the amount of presents that the kids get for holidays, like the kids get fucking bored. Like they're wrapping, they get it's like it's like tennis elbow. My kids get like wrapping paper wrists. They're like, I can't, I can't say I can't open another present dad. Can we finish this up around New Year's? I need some time to heal. That's exaggeration. No, I remember that too. When my kid was younger, I would we would stop. We'd be like, uh, she's playing with that. We're not opening presents. Christmas would take two days sometimes. Yeah. On Christmas Day, every kid opens a present, you watch them open it, you get excited about it. Correct. So you can't just have like one kid with 15 presents, another kid with five, and another kid with two. Yeah, but you can't. And the kid in 15 is opening eight, nine more presents. Yeah, but if you're watching them open two at a time, the kid who's fifteen wants 300 bucks and you give him 300 bucks cash. Then you wrap it up. The other kid's equal. You're just making it equal. What's the point of wrap it up? It is fun to open gifts. That's the problem. I'm in between. I'm in between. Now what happens? The numbers should be close because I'm in between, because it's a trade, it's a circle. I don't believe that. So now what I'll wrap you a hot dog, like he says. I'll wrap you anything. Just have you open it. I would fucking be like, what the fuck is this hot dog bringing me from the sweatshirt earlier? I just wanted you to have something to open. Next. So so here's another scenario. Let's just say your three boys all stay heterosexual boys for their whole life. In your mind's eye, just looking in this day and age, the odds of that happening I know are slim. And or staying male. Let's just say they all stay male. They all stay men and heterosexual. They all get married and they all have kids. Okay. Okay. Let's just pretend like that's even a feasible thing to do. What if they don't remain male but remain heterosexual? Go. All right. Let's just say let's just say one of them has one kid. One of them has three. Oh no, that's not a number. That's not even. One has three kids. Okay. And one of them has none. No, one of them turns into like a wild, like traditional Christian family, and they have 14 kids. They're gonna spread them out. Let's just say your kid's wife's vagina turns into a clown car for fucking kids to crawl out of. Gross. Exactly every 10 months. I don't want to. Oh man. So let's just pretend now you have this wild, staggered number of children. Grandchildren, right? Do every one of them grandchildren get the exact same gift? Oh fuck yeah. Oh, wait, wait, exact same gift. You think the one I didn't answer it right. So let's just say amount I meant to say. Let's just say one kid, one kid, the the son who has one kid would get like the same I know where you're coming from. I know exactly the value of gifts as each kid and the one with thirteen. Oh, because it's your kid because now not the grandkids. Now that kid now that son is like you spent eighty dollars on my kid, but you spent eleven hundred dollars on my brother's kids because he has more of them. That's you looking at it that way. Okay, yeah, because you're okay, listen you're only Going one level on the on the triangle. I have a rebuttal. Can I re rebut it? No. I can't rebut I can't. No, you gotta answer the question. I'm gonna answer. What level of fairness? What I just said is going to be an answer. All right. An answer is because you only have one child, you get this amount of money. Because your costs in life are a lot less than your brother's costs that have been. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. The one kid on my one son has one kid, right? He gets an Xbox. So that $300 is divided between 12 on one? No way. He's divided between the Xbox for one kid, and then the 14 kids get $300 divided between them. Are you gonna make the kid? Are you gonna make a big 10% tithe out of the gift? Whoa. Or after the gift. One kid gets an Xbox and then the 14 in the Christian family each get a fucking king-size candy bar. Yeah, no, they get an eraser for a pencil. That is wrecked. Yes. That is what that's what happens. And that's what happens because that's life. That's wrecked. But they still all get the same amount of gifts. That is wrecked. That is fucking. I will wrap your pencil eraser in a giant Xbox
White Elephant Chaos And Movie Talk
box and you'll still be happy because you got a present to open. I think my dad's company figured out this conundrum. They figured it out. Yeah, they get the women 72% of what they get the men. No, no, no. The company my dad works for used to have this company party. It was a Christmas party. And us as kids, it was a fucking big deal because they gave out really good gifts. They gave out better gifts than our parents gave us. They gave out buckets of experimental glues. They gave out that you're supposed to lick to find out which one they gave out gifts at these parties that challenged the gifts we received from our own parents that worked for this company. Like it was the bomb. But some kids didn't have that same experience because what they made us do is throw a hook over a cardboard box wall, and someone would just hook a random gift on your hook, and you would pull it up, and that would be Santa's gift from the company that your dad worked for. And some of them were good and some of them were not. And I distinctly remember going home from one once where my brother got a better gift than me, and me not really actually given a shit. That's kind of but so they spread out the money in a way that was distributed equally by random. Right? It's it's all about uh luck of the draw. Luck of the draw. I mean, uh this Christmas, this Christmas we do every every Christmas we do the elephant stupid gift thingy. Blah blah blah. You know, whatever it is. Right. You put a $30 cap on it or whatever it is. And but this year, you got boy, girl, neutral. Yeah, and this year, my mom, for some reason, put a $350, $400 gift in the mix, and she told everyone that, yes, this gift is there. You don't know what it is. Yeah. And everyone was trying to figure out what it was, trying to get it, and I ended up getting it. I don't know how. Yeah, but turns out it turns out the laser hair removal gun was actually for her. It was uh the meta glasses. Nice. And I I I could tell by the size of the box. So someone got it before me, and then I stole it back because I could tell what it was. Wow. So everyone kept the gifts and then you get the steal game. But my mom fucks that game up every yeah. The movie Four Christmases? Yeah, hell yeah. Vince Von start like you bought the fucking kid an Xbox. No, no, he's like, oh dude, it's such a good one. He's like, he's like, we had a uh a $20 cap on presents. Yeah, present. And it's like his nephew or something. So he this the shtick is is him and what's the Vince Vaughn and what's the other actress? The little hot blonde chick, uh whatever. Yeah, I don't mind. They're married and they always go on vacation over Christmas, so they don't have to deal with each other's families. So they just oh sorry, we got stuck in yeah, we're doing volunteer work. They'd lie and go on vacation. Well, they got caught, like the news broadcasts them stuck in the airport because of weather delays. Like, oh, where are you going? To Tahiti, and they're like, uh no, we're going to visit the Africans and whatever, and issue malaria shots or whatever. So yeah, in that movie, Vince Vaughn buys a fucking Xbox for one of the grandkids. We got a $20 limit. We ain't got no money like that. But he hadn't been around the whole yeah. So yeah, there's still a bad good way. And that in that movie, I do. I I like the part where he buys his dad a uh a satellite dish. Yeah, and he's like, I don't need an installer installing my satellite dish. I want you to do it. And then he's like, Well, you really want an installer to do it. He's like, I don't need an installer coming here and touching my wing-a-dang dang and fuck with my my my sexual parts. I uh what have you installed? Then he goes on the roof and installs it, and then he fucking falls off the roof. Oh, it's a great movie. Oh, it's awesome.
When Fair Creates Possession
It's an awesome movie. But it there's life's not fair, dude. That's the message I think we're going to. And I think I think you gotta instill that in your kids early. Otherwise, you're just setting a president that's never gonna leave them. Well, everything has to be fair, everything, everything is see it, and then it causes like this possessive thing. Because that's how my wife and her brother were. Like everything had to be fair no matter what. So then when my wife got old enough where she started doing stuff, like next thing you know, she's like writing her name on boxes of cereal that she bought, and she's like, No, this is mine, not yours. Your wife used to do that? Yeah. You don't do it anymore then. No. When you were first dating? No, she she did it when she lived with her parents, like, so that nobody touched her stomach because why the fuck is my cereal down one quarter? Well, no, because it wouldn't be fair if she bought it and somebody else touched it, because everything in their house had to be fair. And uh nothing in my house was ever fair. Like you know, there wasn't enough for my mom to buy three of us the same of anything. It reminds me of uh when we used to drink my parents' alcohol, and my dad used to draw a marker line where the alcohol was, and we just filled with water. Yeah. Back to that line. We drank, we drank whatever it was, it filled it back up. That's genius. You can't do that with cereal. Should have thought of that. You could squeeze the cereal box. You're just putting dried rice back in the box. Well, you can put other things just uncle Benz to the fucking top. Wait a minute, this isn't cookie crisp. You guys don't know the cereal box trick? What the fuck did he do in your cereal? Oh my god. You guys, you just gotta take the saltine crackers no one's eating, crunch them up, put them in the bottom of the box. You gotta pull the bag out. Same thing as rice. Pull the bag out, put the bag in the bottom of the box, put the bag back in, and then it looks like it's a pie. When someone finally finishes it, they're gonna see that fucking cracker fucking bag in the bottom of the fucking cereal box. That's not my problem. But actually, that is a good idea. I've left the scene. I'm gonna tell my kids to do that when my wife's like, why? Who finished my fucking preparation? I think my dad intentionally left a bottle of gin cooking gin available in the kitchen for me to experiment with when I wanted to try alcohol. And yeah, I didn't want to drink alcohol after cook cooking gin. Does all gin taste like pine pine needles? But some is more like it's just they're all. Like the cook try cooking gin. It's like nasty. It's fire in your mouth.
Back To The Bottle And Takeaways
Shit tastes like pine pine. This all started, I think, from something, but it all became because Jay got pissed off because I got Tony a gift and not him. It all started because yeah, we've seen Jay holding back tears. I hold I hold him back every time I come here. And then me being the kind of person I am, I'm like, I pop the bottle open and I'm like, Jay, now's your chance. You can try my gift. And apparently it's too disgusting, too licory for him. It was disgusting. He's like, Oh, I'll stick to my white claws. He's like, I already got hair on my chest, fucker. Yeah, it wasn't great. Don't need any more. Stop trying to be too fair with your kids, though. It's not good for anybody, it's not good for the parents, it's not good for the kids. I like how you take your headphones off to tell me that.
Closing And Tuesday Plug
No, he's knocking. He's talking in the mic, he doesn't even want to hear himself talk. He doesn't hear me right now. Chris, lead us out. Top shelf stories every Tuesday. Thanks for tuning in. Like, comment, subscribe. All that
