Winez

When I was a wee babe at 24, I went to a friend’s party in Chicago. At this point in our lives, my friends and I found wine distasteful and disgusting. It was like offering an French Revolution era peasant a fancy wig or something – like, we didn’t want anything to do with the bourgeoisie BS that was wine. Wine was only acceptable in bag-in-a-box form, otherwise it meant you were old and used up.

At this particular party, though, someone had bought a bottle of wine to share with the group. As beer was being primarily used for beer pong and flip cup, the wine was really the only thing to drink as a sidecar, because, God forbid, as a 24 year old, you go to a party and not be drinking the entire duration of said party.

Well, after some drinks my friend and I read the bottle and discovered that this particular wine happened to be special made to be served at “creek temperature.”

At first glance, this seems to be a thing that one could describe an object as – like, by first glance, I mean being hammered off a bottle of wine and just reading the back while you wait for someone to open the second bottle.

But, really, what the hell is creek temperature? Like… what month is it? Is it close to the source? Like on a mountain? Is it one of the dirt track muddy creeks (pronounced cricks if you come from my family) that I grew up around?

Because we had a few drinks, this concept of creek temperature was turned into a victory chant for my friend and my beer pong team.

Feel the water…creek temperature…yeah!

Don’t ask.

Fast forward to present day and me and this same friend getting dinner at a restaurant. Now that we are 30, wine is a thing – wine is THE THING. You drink wine at home, at a restaurant, alone… It’s the official drink of those 30+ (if you’re gay 27+).

Since we were drinking wine, my friend and I talked about creek temperature. This led me to picking up the bottle of wine at the table.

I’m like, “Wine makes the most ridiculous claims. Let me see what this wine says.”

Yes, you read correctly: this wine claims to be as brooding and complex as a troubadour.

Wine similes are out of control. WTF does that string of words mean? It can’t be disproved. Maybe this super cheap wine does taste like a brooding and complex troubadour, but what if the troubadour is actually quite sensitive and sharing? What if this wine is actually unfairly profiling troubadours in general and they are actually super fun to hang out with? Maybe a troubadour actually tastes like Miller Lite.

Or maybe troubadours are actually obnoxious. I mean they parade around with lutes, begging to be the center of attention. What if their desire to be the center of attention, and desire to retell stories of high drama means that a troubadour actually tastes like a sixteen year old girl? So they’re more like Zima?

I really wanted to start an Instagram account called Outrageous Wine Claims because wine marketers literally string together a bunch of ridiculous words together that sound good and mean something.

General wine simile equation:

This wine tastes as FLOWERY ADJECTIVE HERE and FLOWERY ADJECTIVE HERE as a UNCOMMON NOUN HERE.

This wine tastes as free and aquatic as a Narwhal.

There is no way to empirically measure any of that previous statement. In fact, this concept doesn’t even exist. It’s literally saying something tastes like the sound of the words that have just been strung together.

As fiery and sensual as a your mistress: Adultery Wines.

My friend actually texted me the next week with this one:

Yup this wine: shares the soul and intensity of unbridled freedom.

This is a little different than the standard equation, but it’s a derivation of the main formula: NOUN + ADJECTIVE of ADJECTIVE + NOUN.

Unbridled freedom doesn’t exist – does it have a soul? Why would freedom ever be bridled? Wouldn’t it then not be freedom?

I actually believe that wine companies simply steal 10^th grade poems to make these labels. Personally, that’s when I would string cool sounding words together in the hope that the general sound conveyed some higher meaning.

The sky was full of light like a prism of morning.

That sounds cool but in no way makes any sense.

I think I may have found my calling, though: wine label descriptographer.

Velvet: the wine that tastes like a red moon overflowing with the world’s reflected love.

Wine the Wine: as adverb adjective as adjective nounish.

T-Wisdom

I recently had to lay to rest my iPhone 4S (may her spirit live on forever). I dropped her like 40 times, but the most recent was her last.

I discovered about 2 weeks ago that I couldn’t make calls anymore. The mic was completely busted. The phone may have been broken for weeks before that, but I never make phone calls, so I didn’t even notice.

The only thing that precipitated me getting a new phone was the fact that I had to call my mom. Literally the only person I ever call is my mom. Like ever. The phone was actually also a year and a half old, so it was almost time to get a new one anyway.

Being prudent and cheap, I shopped around to all the major carriers. I had been with Virgin (insert joke about me not getting any) but they only had up to a 5S and that phone costs $50 less than a 6. Like…what?

So I ended up going to T-mobile for the new phone and month-to-month plan. 

The first thing about this experience is that the T-mobile store in downtown Chicago is like the melting pot of the United States. If you want to get a taste of every culture under the sun, just go to the State Street office.  The people who worked there were African-American, Asian-American, Middle Eastern. As I checked out a Chinese lady was yelling because the guy didn’t give her the correct phone back. I was in there and super white. It was basically “We Are the World.”

But also, the woman who checked me out was the wisest of all the people. Like she may have been one of those Greek Goddeses parading around as a T-mobile store assistant.

Basically, I was going to buy the phone without a case.

She says, “I’m not letting you leave here without a case. You have to buy one. Bring back – you have 30 days – but you are not leaving with a $700 phone and no case.”

I’m like, “Pshaw.”

But I get the phone and she is harassing me. “You better buy a case. Buy it. I’m not letting you leave.”

So I eventually do the math. Yes, I pulled out my phone calculator and decided that buying the super slim, indestructible case was a good deal. If the phone lasts 2 years and I spend 80 on the case: 1. I won’t have a broken mic again. 2. It’s only like $3 a month for phone insurance.

So the lady has forced me into buying a phone case and I leave the store.

After thinking a bit, my man side (as little as there is, it’s still there) comes in and is like:

Tedd, bruh, you don’t need a case, man. Cases are for pussies who can’t handle having a sweet man-phone, bro. You want to take out your phone in front of some hot man-honnies and they see you got a bitch-ass phone case? Nah, bro. Nah.

I decided that I would ride out my 30 days with the case and then take it back for a refund. Think of all the things I could do with $80!!

Well, literally the next day I’m in the gym and I have my phone out. I’m doing these back exercises where you put one knee on the bench and then you pull a weight like you’re starting a lawn mower.

I thought about moving the phone out of my way, but then I realized that I’ve never had trouble lifting before and, quite honestly, I don’t ever push myself hard enough where I would struggle with a weight.

But I go to put my knee on the bench and it breaks. Like the stop on the bench clunks I drop the weight square on my phone, and fall off the bench.

I almost wept and pissed my pants at the same time.

But, LO, the phone was fine. The 65 lb weight just bounced right off the case.

INDESTRUCTIBLE!!

Somewhere above me a lady in a T-mobile shirt smiled down, a ray of cellular light coming out of her hands: “My son, now you have learned. Always listen to the lady from T-mobile.”