Has anyone had one of those bad days when no matter what you did, nothing went right? This is my story about how no matter what kind of bad day you’re having, it can always get worse. I’m a Marine and homebrewer living on the island of Guam. I’ve been brewing for approximately five years and never get tired of this hobby (just like the rest of you). I ordered a Brew Magic commercial unit from Sabco a few months ago and it finally arrived at customs. This is where my problems started. Island customs said they were going to hold my Brew Magic hostage until I paid a 4% sales tax — I fought with them for a week before I paid the charge! Then, when I went to pay the tax, the lady behind the counter (who I dealt with over the phone) looked at me as I handed her my credit card and said “you’re not going to like this.” Because I was using a credit card, they had to charge me another 4% on the taxed total. Well, after going through the hassle with the tax and customs, a whole new adventure arose. The delivery guy called from five miles away and said he was almost to my house, but broke down on the side of the road. I had to call the company and reschedule another drop off for later that day. Not a problem, I thought, because they said they would deliver it that day, no matter what. The delivery company had to transfer my Brew Magic onto a second truck after the first truck returned (with my Brew Magic) from being towed. So what do you think happens next? The second truck supposedly has a heart attack and doesn’t make it past the company gate before it breaks down. But even then, do you think this real life Charlie Brown gets a break? I called the delivery company around 2:30 p.m. to see what’s up only to hear that the company is holding a funeral service for truck #1 and truck #2 on Sunday. I said “you got to be kidding me.” The man replied, “Hold on a second,” and all I heard was yelling and cursing back and forth between him and one of his drivers. He got back on the phone and said, “I’ve got a third truck,” to which I replied, “What, did it catch on fire?” He laughed and told me not to worry, that he would get my Brew Magic to me in about 20 minutes. When I met the lift truck at the base gates, we both parked. As I signed in the one guy the company sent, he looked at me with a serious look and said, “Do you have a forklift where you live?” I told him, “Yeah, I keep it next to the lawnmower.” He laughed, as did a bunch of other people waiting in line to get base passes. I led him through the base gates and he followed me to my house, which is only about a mile and a half away from the gates, and it felt like eternity as I recalled his comment about the fork lift. When we finally arrived at my house, he backed the truck up into my driveway, got out and looked at me again with that concerned look on his face and said, “My lift gate is broken, how can we get it off?” I lost it. I started laughing like Tom Hanks when the bathtub fell through the floor in the movie “Money Pit.” I think I scared the driver, because he asked me if I was all right – again with that concerned look in his eye – and I lost it even more. Usually my wife has some kind of comment to say, but I think she saw the crazy look in my eye as I went to get a hammer so I could break open the crate on the truck. Well, in the end, we carried the Brew Magic off the truck and into the garage, and I gave the driver a tour of my home brewery – and even taught him a little about brewing. But with all the bad luck I was having, I felt like a black cat was circling my house, so that’s where my brewery got its name, Black Cat Brewery. But in the end I’ve found that bad luck can make good beer.