(originally published 9/3/08)
OK, before you get all hunkered down to read some mind-blowing blog about how the whole world is going down the damn toilet, and we should all do like John Lennon and give peace a freakin’ chance…let me tell you that this blog is not about that. This is about something much more minor and perhaps quite irrelevant to most everyone. In fact, I daresay that 90 percent of the folks reading this will wonder what the hell I’m ranting about, or WHY I even bother. Well, the fact remains that I have plenty of other things to rant about, but ranting about all THAT will do nothing but alienate the few left who care about me, and piss off the rest.
But as I frequently do, I digress.
Tonight, I come home from work and make a fairly simple dinner. I bought a bottle of white wine a couple weeks ago, and I ask DH if he’d like wine with dinner. He does, so I get out Old Faithful (Old Faithful is my wine opener. Had it for years at several restaurant jobs. Never failed me, not once. Hence the name Old Faithful. Yeah, HENCE!!!) and prepare to open the bottle of wine, just like I’ve done both for myself and the tables I used to wait on, hundreds of times before.
Before I continue, let me tell you about how long it took me to learn how to properly open and present a bottle of wine. Years. Yes, that’s right. YEARS. Being the not-tall person I am (I’m 5 foot 2), consider I also have small hands and short fingers. My ring size is 5! Picture small hands and short fingers trying to juggle a bottle of wine with it’s long, tapered neck; and the ubiquitous wine opener carried by every food server from here to….well, every food server everywhere. The damn thing’s like a Swiss Army Knife; on one side you have your short blade for cutting through the foil around the neck of the bottle & cork, and on the other, the actual corkscrew part and a metal thingy I can only describe as being similar to a prop rod under the hood of a car. Once you screw the corkscrew in, you use the metal thingy to get some leverage on the lip of the bottle, pull a bit, and voila! Your cork is out. Not an easy task when you have small hands and fingers. I worked damn hard at not only learning how to OPEN the wine bottle, but going through the whole dance of presenting the bottle to my table. Yes, it’s tedious and a pain in the ass. Yes, it’s more old school than Will Ferrell. But you know what, once I learned how to present and open the bottles, I took a lot of pride in my technique. If I waited on you, not once would I put the bottle between my knees to get the cork out. Not once did I break a cork. Nor did I get cork inside the wine, leave foil around the rim of the bottle where it might cut you, or any any way ruin the bottle. I secretly loved presenting wine to my tables (and if you tell any of my former co-workers, I will totally deny it). It’s a nice touch when you’re going out to eat. And, it’s a useful skill at home too….if you drink a lot of wine. (wink wink)
So back to tonight’s dinner, and the bottle of wine. I have the bottle. I have Old Faithful, blade out and ready to work. Then I look closely at the foil seal around the bottle. Something’s not right. The foil looks weird. I look closer, Old Faithful ready and waiting. It suddenly dawns on me what is wrong with this bottle of wine, but I just can’t believe it. This can’t be! What is going on?! Is this one of the signs of the apocalypse? My bottle of wine has a SCREW TOP. A fucking screw top!
<shakes head sadly, wondering where all the corks have gone…..>