Everything You Need

October 28, 2017 8:31 PM

Ten minutes to midnight on Tuesday, Jeremy J. Van Ert stepped into a walk-in beer cooler at a Kwik Trip convenience store in Marshfield, Wis. When the doors locked behind him at midnight, he decided that rather than shout for help, he would just camp out, police say. “He just decided to run it out for the night. It had everything that he needed.”
posted by Literaryhero (40 comments total)

I am glad this dude did not get hypothermia. I am sad that there's no mention of whether he had access to lifesaving equipment for being locked overnight in a beer cooler, such as access to chips or pretzels.
posted by supercrayon at 8:39 PM on October 28, 2017 [17 favorites]

Honestly, it doesn't sound like he drank that much. I would have thought the kind of guy okay with getting locked in a cooler would be knocking back a thirty rack of natty ice.
posted by Ferreous at 8:48 PM on October 28, 2017 [5 favorites]

This guy's my hero.
posted by ZenMasterThis at 8:54 PM on October 28, 2017

I am not even making this up. I have bought beer at that Kwik Trip. They stock (or stocked, it's been 4+ years) New Glarus beers and we were on our way to a friends for a cookout.

I may have had a beer or two while restocking the cooler in my more... let's say undisciplined days.
posted by Pogo_Fuzzybutt at 9:02 PM on October 28, 2017 [4 favorites]

I'm kind of amazed that a walk in refrigerator with an automatically locking door that can't be opened from the inside is even legal. Seems potentially problematic? Or is it just that I have an irrational fear of getting Amontilladoed?
posted by rodlymight at 9:16 PM on October 28, 2017 [37 favorites]

Wisconsin alcohol culture case study No. 45,693. Classic.
posted by carmicha at 9:18 PM on October 28, 2017 [5 favorites]

The type of dude who deliberately gets locked in a beer cooler is also the type of dude who beelines right for the four loko. Even still, I thought he would have drank more too.

It also seems like a customer saw him in there, notified an employee and then nothing was done? Am I reading that wrong?
posted by Literaryhero at 9:44 PM on October 28, 2017 [1 favorite]

All the ledes are buried in this one:

a) The store is open 24/7 and knocking on the cooler door would have gotten someone's attention
b) The reason the door locked at midnight is because the store doesn't sell alcohol after midnight, so he wouldn't have been able to buy any after getting out
c) He was on probation from another crime and wasn't allowed to drink alcohol anyway

Sounds like someone was looking for their own private pub to 'chill' in for the night.
posted by mantecol at 9:45 PM on October 28, 2017 [34 favorites]

To answer my own question, it sounds like the customer saw him at 6am-ish, which is also when the cooler was going to open anyway? It is a little confusingly written.
posted by Literaryhero at 9:46 PM on October 28, 2017 [1 favorite]

I have drunked
the Icehouse
that were in
the icebox

and which
you were probably
saving
for beer time
posted by not_the_water at 11:23 PM on October 28, 2017 [30 favorites]

I'm aghast that the writers for the Simpsons hadn't thought of writing this into the show.


Well done sir: you've out-Homer'd Homer Simpson!
posted by alex_skazat at 11:48 PM on October 28, 2017 [6 favorites]

Not the hero we wanted but perhaps the hero we need.
posted by Joey Michaels at 12:21 AM on October 29, 2017 [2 favorites]

Of all the beer in the cooler, he chose the Icehouse? He had the equivalent of a beer and a half and some Four Lokos. This story does not add up.
posted by AugustWest at 1:07 AM on October 29, 2017 [3 favorites]

I was at a grocery store with a friend once, and while we were walking around I was shocked in a minor way when he casually took a 20oz Coke out of a checkout cooler, opened it, and started drinking it right there in the store. "Isn't that stealing?" I asked my friend, who is actually a very devout Catholic. He said no, he was going to pay for it at the checkout when we left, where he would present the empty bottle. I had never heard of that before, but he seemed to think it was a common thing. For all I know, it might be. When we checked out he paid for it and there was no incident. I've not had the nerve to try it myself.

If it *is* something that is sometimes done, then I'm unsure how this differs, except for the sale of alcohol after midnight thing I guess, and/or a low grade trespassing kind of thing. He intended to pay for it all along, apparently.
posted by JHarris at 1:38 AM on October 29, 2017

He said no, he was going to pay for it at the checkout when we left, where he would present the empty bottle. I had never heard of that before, but he seemed to think it was a common thing. For all I know, it might be. When we checked out he paid for it and there was no incident. I've not had the nerve to try it myself.

When my now-16yo was a toddler, we would start our grocery shopping with a trip to the bakery, where I would get him a bagel. He would gnaw on it while I shopped, and I would put the empty bag in the cart to remind me to pay for it at the checkout. On other trips, I would sometimes open a box of crackers for the kids. Nobody blinked an eye. I was nervous about it the first time, but it got comfortable with time.

If it *is* something that is sometimes done, then I'm unsure how this differs, except for the sale of alcohol after midnight thing I guess, and/or a low grade trespassing kind of thing. He intended to pay for it all along, apparently.

Beer cooler guy headed for the door when he was let out. He didn't make any effort to pay.
posted by Orlop at 1:55 AM on October 29, 2017 [3 favorites]

"I'm aghast that the writers for the Simpsons hadn't thought of writing this into the show."

The writers of The Brady Bunch already did:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ghThTDJDTU4
posted by jonathanhughes at 5:24 AM on October 29, 2017 [1 favorite]

He headed for the door not the bathroom...
posted by SpaceWarp13 at 5:31 AM on October 29, 2017

All that beer, and, obviously, the cooler has no bathroom. I don't like the conclusion I'm drawing.
posted by Rosie M. Banks at 5:43 AM on October 29, 2017 [5 favorites]

All that beer, and, obviously, the cooler has no bathroom. I don't like the conclusion I'm drawing.

Talking about Icehouse and Natty Light...
posted by Samizdata at 6:34 AM on October 29, 2017 [1 favorite]

You're telling me if I moved to Marshfield, I could buy beer after 9 pm?
posted by augustimagination at 7:10 AM on October 29, 2017

JHarris, I've opened bottles of water in stores before and drank half before I got to the checkout if I was dying of thirst. I used to grab my wee son a dinner roll or croissant at the start of grocery shopping to keep him occupied and just tell the cashier as we checked out. He was usually still gnawing on it. Nobody seemed to think it was odd.
posted by ThatCanadianGirl at 7:56 AM on October 29, 2017 [1 favorite]

On group bike rides people usually stop at a gas station out in the country to get water, gatorade, snacks, etc. When 40 people descend on a store at once, the lines get long. People often open and consume whatever they got and then pay for the package. I've never had a clerk bat an eye.
posted by RustyBrooks at 8:06 AM on October 29, 2017 [1 favorite]

When the doors unlocked shortly before 6 a.m., Van Ert, 38, “made a beeline from the beer cooler to the door without any attempt to pay for what he had consumed or broken,” Gramza said.

Also if I were locked in a beer cooler in Wisconsin overnight the last thing I would drink would be Four fucking Loko. I can think of dozens Great Lakes-area beers I'd be drinking in that situation...

...which is probably why I don't drink anymore.
posted by elsietheeel at 8:32 AM on October 29, 2017 [4 favorites]

Before my diabetes was diagnosed, I walked into a store with a raging thirst and opened and drank part of a jug of milk before I paid for it.
posted by Bruce H. at 8:33 AM on October 29, 2017

I'll frequently grab a drink while I shop and pay for the bottle on my way out, but sometimes if I'm checking myself out rhe scanner complains the weight is wrong and I have to wait a few seconds for the attendant to press the it's-fine-get-on-with-it button.
posted by straight at 9:04 AM on October 29, 2017 [1 favorite]

Yeah, you can do that with food and non-alcoholic drinks, but if a grocery store does not have a license to *serve* alcohol, you can't drink it while there. I'm pretty sure that's a difference license with different insurance needed.

So regardless of whether he intended to pay or not, drinking alcohol on the premises was probably illegal.
posted by greermahoney at 9:50 AM on October 29, 2017 [4 favorites]

Beer cooler guy headed for the door when he was let out. He didn't make any effort to pay.

Aah, I misread that part then. Yeah, then they definitely were right to get him on shoplifting. He was on probation too, bad move.
posted by JHarris at 9:56 AM on October 29, 2017

The AP version of this story has a line which should be Wisconsin's new state motto, "[H]e figured he might just as well stay inside and drink."
posted by nathan_teske at 12:14 PM on October 29, 2017 [2 favorites]

 → All that beer, and, obviously, the cooler has no bathroom

It does now, though. I pity the poor bastard who finds it
posted by scruss at 2:37 PM on October 29, 2017 [1 favorite]

They frown on you if you eat food sold by weight before you pay for it but most everything is fair game.
posted by bendy at 4:36 PM on October 29, 2017 [1 favorite]

Regarding finding bathrooms, just saying, some of those kinds of stores have drains in the floor so spills and stuff like mop water will have somewhere to go.
posted by JHarris at 5:05 PM on October 29, 2017

I'm aghast that the writers for the Simpsons hadn't thought of writing this into the show.

Frostillicus sez: That's a paddlin'.
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 5:14 PM on October 29, 2017

dozens Great Lakes-area beers

Hell, Great Lakes alone will usually have half a dozen knocking around a cooler (at least in Chicago) and they’re all at minimum reasonably tasty and drinkable.
posted by wotsac at 5:41 PM on October 29, 2017

Googling the guy it sounds like he has a history of mental health and substance abuse issues.

It seems conceivable he couldn't handle being "trapped" in there the way the average person could.
posted by smelendez at 10:08 PM on October 29, 2017

It's like the ancient joke about the guy drowning for 2 hours in a vat of beer. "He would have drowned faster, but he had to get out a couple of times to take a pee."

In any case, if they locked him in, it seems like a lawyer would have an easy time saying that he was trapped, tried knocking on the door, and after many hours was dying of thirst, so of course he drank whatever was available. They should have checked if anyone was in there before locking it. This could have had a horrible ending and we are all lucky he survived. And of course he got the heck out of there when they finally let him out 6 hours later--wouldn't you? etc, etc.

The only worrying thing for such a lawyer is what he has already said to the police--the police are implying that he didn't do anything to try to get out.
posted by eye of newt at 11:40 PM on October 29, 2017

And add me to the list of people who find it horrifying that people will eat/drink food before paying for it. It may be a more basic, primitive emotion--I can see the logical argument for it, certainly if the store doesn't care, as some people here are saying, but that doesn't stop me from being horrified by it anyway. A voice in my head says "How can you do that? What is wrong with you?"

What if you get to the register, then realize you've forgotten your wallet? How do you explain the half eaten bag of chips and the open bottle of soda?
posted by eye of newt at 11:58 PM on October 29, 2017 [2 favorites]

I'm reminded of the ending of Strange Brew.
posted by Chrysostom at 12:14 AM on October 30, 2017 [2 favorites]

I mean, I've definitely gotten to the register and realized that I'd forgotten my wallet before. Multiple times. I just let an employee know what had happened, asked them to set my groceries aside, ran to get my wallet, ran back, and paid. Presumably it would work the same way if I had eaten part of the groceries.

That being said, I probably wouldn't do it myself anyway, for several reasons:

1. I prefer to eat in private where I can put my feet up (figuratively or otherwise) and watch an entertainment and loll about
2. 瓜田李下. I don't want store employees to have any reason to regard me with suspicion, even if I will end up paying just as I am supposed to. I realize it is probably not an issue -- heck, I have walked right out of a convenience store without paying before, in a cloud of absentmindedness, and nobody noticed; I had to walk myself back, re-queue, and pay properly, and nobody said a thing -- but with small things like this, it is easier to capitulate to the anxiety than it to cure it...
posted by inconstant at 11:25 AM on October 30, 2017

If he needed to urinate after all that beer? The world can always use more Coors Light.
posted by Megafly at 4:21 PM on October 30, 2017

And add me to the list of people who find it horrifying that people will eat/drink food before paying for it.

Wow, you would really hate these restaurants they've got now where you sit down and eat an entire meal before you pay for it.
posted by straight at 2:24 AM on October 31, 2017