Do you remember that time when you were running to catch a football thrown by your brother but you weren’t watching where you were going and you ran square into a telephone pole at full speed and got splintered shards jammed into your underarms? No? But you still have the scars.

How about that time you climbed up to the top beam of the old metal play set in your neighbor’s yard, and while you were balancing on the beam, your foot slipped and you fell face first into the bar and plummeted to the earth below, knocking out your two front teeth? Don’t remember that one, huh?

Okay, how about the time you attempted to jump the curb on your bike, but didn’t quite manage it accordingly and you went face-first into the cement base of the stop light? Good thing the ambulance depot was right across the street and the guys were sitting in their lawn chairs and saw the whole thing, right?

Surely you remember that one day when you were climbing the tree in the side yard, but the branch you were on broke and you fell through the skylight of your Grandmother’s travel trailer parked beneath? No? Don’t recall that one, either?

How about the time you showed your truest inner genius and used your index finger to open that rusty old pocket knife by pushing up against its blade? Did you forget you were in the middle of the woods with your friends who pretty much laughed at you as you bled all over the place? At least you managed to get back to your family’s campsite before you passed out.

Still don’t remember?

Well, surely you remember that Saturday that one summer when your mother forced you to go along with her to every rummage sale in the city and after the first hour or so of driving around in the old LTD with no air-conditioning and the windows rolled up because it made it easier for her to hear her Kenny Rogers 8-track tapes through the crappy stereo speakers, you ended up with heat stroke and threw up all over the vinyl seats in the back? How can you forget that? It took all day to clean the goop from between the seats. Heck, it took all summer to get rid of the stench.

Okay, so, none of these ring a bell?

Well, I know you’ll remember this one.

Remember that time you tried the Ian Macleod’s Isle of Skye Blended 12-year-old edition?

It was sour, like the back seat of the LTD, except a tad sweet, too, like you’d eaten a strawberry fruit smoothie right before you threw up.

And the taste, well, very much a metal play set beam to the face – salty blood filling up in the corners of the mouth with a little bit of peaty dirt to round out the experience.

And the finish, while it’s a little harder to describe, once you recall the elements of its confection, the trace is that of charred wood and 1970s garage sale price tag adhesive.

Remember?

I knew you would. That’s a tough one to forget.