WINE TASTING WITHOUT THE TASTING

The Plan:
The local liquor store (known in New England as The Packy) is having two pre-Thanksgiving wine tastings today.  The first runs from 1:00-3:00, and the second runs from 3:00-5:00.  My plan is to hit the packy at exactly 2:50 so I can attend both tastings.  After the tasting, I have to get to the store and pick up some important things like eggs, milk, and toilet paper.  After all of this, I have to get back to writing a paper that is due online by Monday evening.

The Itinerary:
Drive over to my friend's house.  Have food before the wine tasting.  Proceed as planned.

The Revised Plan:
I have to take my son's car for a ride.  He's away at college, and I try to drive the car here and there to keep it from getting all gunky and cranky (which I believe are perfectly legitimate, high-tech automotive words).  My friend's son is also away at college and beyond -- he's in Patagonia for a semester, so his car won't even be driven during Thanksgiving break -- and his car also needs a jaunt.  We decide to take my original plan and tweak it just a bit.  I will drive my son's car to my friend's house.  We will driver her son's car to the grocery store, come back to her house, and put her groceries away.  Then I will drive back to my house, put my groceries away, and meet her at the packy for the wine tasting.  After that, she will drive home and proceed with her evening; I will drive home and work on my paper.

The Actual Events:
I drive my son's car to my friend's house.  It is an unusually beautiful and temperate November day.  The sun is shining and it's sweater weather (as opposed to thermal underwear and parka weather).  She has prepared a surprise snack of breaded green beans and a wasabi ranch dip, a better and more flavorful version of the Applebee's appetizer we had recently.  We decide to open a bottle of wine and sit outside with the snack.  We are laughing so loudly that we attract the next door neighbors who come over to chat but do not indulge in the wine.  We, on the other hand, continue refilling our goblets.

We realize that we will miss the wine tasting whether we go to the store before or after, and decide that we don't give a rat's ass because it's a gorgeous autumn afternoon, we already have wine, and we are having fun interrupting one of the neighbors every time he tries to speak, which we can easily see is annoying him, but the wine is preventing us from having any shred of verbal control.

Apparently we drink all the wine because the bottle is inexplicably empty.  As the sun starts to go down, which is now much later, we stand up, walk around, and make sure we are not buzzed.  Good thing because now we have to go to the store.  My friend drives because her son's car still hasn't taken its road trip whereas my son's car has.  We park near a huge Penske truck just in case we can't find the car when we come out again in the dark.  It's not that we think we won't remember where we parked; we're concerned that we won't remember which car we brought with us.  There are many times when I take out my keys and start trying to beep open my doors only to remember I'm not even driving.  (I did this recently in Portsmouth with my sister, clicking my remote as we walked toward her car.  Doh.)

Once inside the store, we stay together for two aisles.  She runs into a work friend and explains that we have just shared an entire bottle of wine.  (Okay, it was a while before this, but it makes for a better excuse as to why we are putting junk into our carriages.)  Then we decide to split up.  My list is twice as long as hers is, she has less than twelve items and I have less than twenty-five, which means I should be done last.  However, my friend keeps looking at her Staples list instead of her grocery list, and I can hear her muttering, "Purple folder ... purple folder ...  Wait.  Chicken, oil ..."  I look for her one more time before I hit the check-out and call her cell phone.  It goes to voice mail, so I leave her a message: "I'm by the cooked chickens.  Where are you?"  She has already checked out and meets me at the chickens.  "Did you get my message?" I ask.  No, she didn't even know I called her because her cell phone is tucked away in her pocketbook.  Apparently we communicate through mental osmosis.

After I check out, we head to the parking lot and toward the giant yellow Penske truck that is thankfully still parked where we can easily see it.  We stop for gas because the light comes on as soon as we pull out of the parking lot.  She puts in about 1.5 gallons because she has $5.  That's more than enough to get us home.  We laugh hysterically over family stories, work stories, and people-we-saw-in-the-store stories that we tell on the short ride home while gazing at the nearly-full moon.  I help her bring in her groceries, and she helps me transfer my bags to my son's car.  When I see she's safe and sound inside, I take off for home.

As soon as I am done pulling son's car and then my own car back into the driveway, my cell phone beeps for an incoming text.  It is my friend reminding me that I have groceries in the back seat on my son's car.  You know, just in case I forgot with all the wine and the full moon, which I might and which is why I asked her to send me a text ... so I wouldn't forget.

As if I could forget such a relaxing and fun day.

I'll worry about Thanksgiving wine next weekend.  Besides, I heard the packy is having another wine tasting next Saturday.  If only the Penske truck were there again then I'd know where to park my car.

I'm just saying.