I’m losing my edge. Nope, it’s true. Totally true. Completely losing my edge. Sad.
Saturday afternoon I need
to go to CVS. There’s also a wine
tasting going on (well, two of them, but only one has started – the grand
tasting is at a different store later in the evening) next door to a CVS, not
the closest CVS but a CVS, just the same.
Look, I don’t intend to go
to this Battle of the Cabs wine tasting.
I’m not a huge fan of Cabernet Sauvignon. I can’t tell one from the other, but I find
myself gravitating toward the wine shop.
I want to get another bottle of the 2013 Laya that I like so much, and
they sell it at this shop for a ridiculously cheap price. So, my car and I autopilot to the Cab tasting
without my sidekick in tow.
I mention my sidekick
because she would never have let me make the mistake I am about to make. She would’ve steered my in the right
direction. She would’ve had my
back. Alas, I am flying solo today, so
there is little left to do but crash and burn.
I’m ahead of myself in the
story.
I walk into the wine shop
expecting maybe six bottles of Cabernets to be open. Instead, there are two tables and probably
more than a dozen wines in this Battle of the Cabs. I take the cheat sheet and a pencil, like I
always do, and start at the wrong table.
Strike number one.
It’s okay. I flip the cheat sheet over and start on the
back. In doing so, I notice that every
cabernet sauvignon being opened today is pricey, some moderately so and some in
the $100 range. It’s clear to me that I
won’t be going home with a cab today, but it’s okay because I came in for the
2013 Laya. I’m not leaving without that
2013 Laya no matter how many cabs suck up to me and whisper in my ear.
At these tastings, I am
notorious for engaging complete strangers in conversations about the wines and
life in general. A few months ago we
were helping a newly-legal young man and his relatives enjoy their first American
wine tasting as a family. (The kid had
been legally drinking in England for a while, but that’s another story.) A few weeks ago I met people at one wine
tasting that I had just run into at another one a town away. (Some of us take our Saturday routines very
seriously.) Today I latch on to a lovely
woman on her way to a show in Cambridge and a friendly older gentleman wearing
a crooked New England Patriots knit hat.
We are unrelated in real life but completely bound by the fact that we
are tasting the wines at the exact same pace.
Here’s one thing people
need to know about me: I consider wine
tasting to be a full-contact sport. I
will grab my spot near the pouring stations, and I will not relent unless
driven to do so. I have been known to
hip-check people and make it look like an accident if they remotely hone in on
my wine tasting mission. I’ll happily
lean back so you can reach the server, or I will pass your glass along and hand
it back to you nicely all full of wine and ready to taste, but do NOT expect
mercy from me at the various tables.
I have killed for less.
I’ve said it before and I’m
not ashamed to admit that my wine tasting skills are rudimentary. I know how to hold the glass’s stem, swirl
the wine to release its aroma, stick my nose in and sniff deeply (though today
my nose is blocked so I have to wing it and make believe), suck in air while
inhaling the wine, chew chew chew, and spit only (and I do mean ONLY) if
absolutely necessary. (Okay, that last
part is my own philosophy.)
I’m no pro, but I know
what I like and what I don’t like. My
two new friends and I are all agreeing on the same wines as our favorites; we
are all agreeing on the ones that we don’t like. Some of the more expensive ones taste … well …
watery. I don’t know the correct
term. They taste like flat soda.
My new pal, the one who
has to go to a show in Cambridge, tells me she likes reds. I steer her toward the 2013 Laya. “Very drinkable,” I tell her, “and very
cheap. Astonishingly inexpensive for the
taste.” The older gentleman hears me, so
I repeat the same information to him. “Very
drinkable and very cheap. Astonishingly
inexpensive for the taste.” By this
time, though, I am a few sips over the I-Feel-Like-Walking-The-Store-Searching
limit – still sober, but definitely not wanting to scour the aisles.
Okay, the truth is I’m
having a frigging hot flash and I am still wearing my coat. Yesterday it was -4 degrees; today it’s 27
degrees. In New England terms, we’ve hit
summer. I have to get out of the
store. I can feel the sweat starting on
my back and face. Damnit. I just showered, too. That drives me batty. This is strike number
two.
I see the store
owner. He is chatting with another
gentleman, a man about my age who is sipping a glass of white wine. I wonder where he got the white since it’s a
cabernet sauvignon day, but I am too freaking hot to wonder much more because I’m
already feeling like my brain will fry just from my internal whacko gauge. (Menopause hot flashes are the true sign that
God might hate women.) I wait until I
can get a word in then ask the owner if the store still has the 2013 Laya. “It’s very drinkable, and very cheap. Astonishingly inexpensive for the taste.”
We find it, I grab a
bottle, and I proceed to stand in a
short line that feels miles long because, by now, I know my face must be red
and there is sweat dripping off of my forehead and upper lip. Such a charming picture, I’m sure.
As I am standing in line,
the gentleman with the wine glass, the same man whose conversation with the
owner I interrupted, comes over to talk to me about the Laya, and I repeat,
almost word for word, my mantra. Dear God, I’m thinking to myself, if I don’t get the hell out of here, I’m
going to leave a puddle of hormonal sweat all over the floor and probably drop
the bottle of wine when it slips out of my clammy palm. Presently, it is my turn at the counter,
and away I go.
It isn’t until I am about
two miles away, coat ripped off, windows wide open so the frigid winter air can
cool me off, that I wonder, “Shit. Was
that guy flirting with me?” Not
necessarily hitting on me – there’s a huge difference – but flirting
conversationally. I mean, I chat up
everyone and I laugh loudly enough and often enough to be known for it. Maybe, just maybe, he really wanted to talk
wine with me. And why not? I’m a reasonably likeable kind of gal.
By the time I reach my own
ice-infested driveway, I am whacking myself in the head. Stupid,
stupid, stupid me. I have the chance
to engage a handsome man in a casual conversation about wine and life in
general, and … I blow it. Me, who will
speak to anyone about anything, Me, who randomly goes to wine tastings because
my car is on autopilot, me, who makes an ass of myself sweating all over a
bottle of 2013 Laya: And I miss the opportunity to engage in chatter with a
nice looking guy. Strike number three.
What … in … the … hell …
is … happening … to … me?!
Holy shit. I’m
losing my edge.
This whole scenario makes
me want to turn back time, have a re-do, a start-over, a re-spin. Suddenly, I am very sad. No, I’m not sad that I didn’t talk more to
the gentleman. Okay, maybe a little sad
about that. I’m totally and completed
deflated (unlike the Patriots, I’m TRULY deflated) that I’ve lost touch with my
own ability to chat-flirt. Damn. So sad.
Then I remember I have in
my no-longer-so-hot-nor-clammy little hand an unopened bottle of 2013 Laya. I may be losing my edge, but apparently I
haven’t lost my touch.
Until next Saturday, then,
or the one after, since lacrosse starts on Valentine’s Day and it’s an away
game (reasonably far away – far enough that I might miss the four-hour
wine-tasting window). I’ll work on my
own game in the meantime. After all, I’m
not old enough yet to lose my edge, and I’ve got the wine (not the whine) to
prove it.
