Red Wine and Other Secrets of a Late Night Shopper

I’ll be the first to say that I do not drink wine.  I don’t.  It just has never tasted good to me.  I always get hit by the sulfites or just the bad taste.  Don’t get me wrong – there have been a couple of good wines that I have tasted, most notably at other people’s weddings.  My problem is that I a) don’t want to spend a lot of money on a bottle of wine, b) I don’t want to spend a lot of money buying a lot of different wines to figure out which are good, and c) I don’t want to waste my time drinking bad wine. 

That said, I’m flying high on one glass tonight, and the second is winking at me and making suggestive ‘come hither’ gestures to me. 

I’m all about this wine stuff now… wheeeee! 

And why?  What was the turning point?  Well, the 4-Hour Body book, of course.  It’s currently the gospel of my meal plan, and I’m sifting through it for tidbits I can use. 

I went last night to buy a bottle of wine.  I’m so pathetically lost in this venture that I don’t even know how late grocery stores sell wine.  I don’t even know where the wine is in the store.  I decide to get a bottle of Perrier instead.  It’s on sale; why not?  I get to the register, and (don’t forget I’m looking really hot in my high heels, make-up, and dressy dress) this nice-looking guy comments about my Perrier.  So I tell him that I came in for a bottle of wine, but I was too embarrassed to ask when they stopped selling.  He told me, and I agreed, that I needed a bottle of wine.  He even asked the cashier and then pointed out where to find wine in the store.  I have since come to believe that he was not some average hormonal male, but in fact the personification of Bacchus. 

Walking to the wine section, I was overwhelmed by the selection, the sheer variety.  That meant I had to establish some superficial parameters right away.  (I must insert here that I am taking about ten times longer to type this post as every single key on the keyboard seems to be jumping up and getting in the way of normal touch-typing tonight.  I keep having to delete and retype just to ensure proper spelling.  It can’t be the wine.  Really.)  First, I ruled out anything less than $6.00 a bottle as unsuited to my needs.  Second, I ruled out anything over $10 a bottle as impractical on my budget.  I had no idea the breadth of wines still in that narrow realm of cost.  Finally, I picked one based on the fact that the label made me laugh – Menage a Trois with pictures of two nekkid people. 

I get home, expecting to share this uncommon bottle of wine with my husband, and he is passed out asleep in the kids’ room, on the floor, on top of the giant teddy bear.  Great.  No Rex for me tonight.

I make the most of it – I fix up a light meal, I fight with the bottle opener (these things were designed so that only either exceedingly sober people or very skilled drunks could operate them), I pour a glass, I fix up my ice packs, and I turn on Jon Stewart.

I actually realize that I like the wine.  Not only that, but it does have pleasant effects.  I also realize that pairing it with food takes out some of the bite I dread.

Fast forward.  Tonight I get home, pop open the bottle, and pour both my husband and myself a glass.  The world looks a lot more friendly from the other side of that glass.