Monday, December 29, 2008

Back to the Grind.

So I hope everyone had a good holiday. I worked something like seventy-five hours in the nine days between Savannah and our annual trek to Chicago for Christmas, so I didn't really have time to blog much.
The week at home was relaxing, mostly, full of food and naps and reading and crosswords. There was a lot of driving, and visits with relatives that I only see once a year, and too little time with the people I really wanted to see. I learned a new term for people like the b.h. and me. DINKWAD: Dual Income No Kids With A Dog. I love it. And come to think of it, many of my best friends are DINKWADs. I will wear it like a badge of honor.
I spent a lot of time picking out beer to bring back for my boss and co-workers, which was fun because I got the satisfaction of shopping with abandon and I didn't have to pay for it. I introduced my dad to the joy of high-gravity beer, which was cool. It's nice to have somebody to split them with because you get to try more varieties.
I am happy to be back, though. And right away I had a blog-worthy customer experience. I wasn't even supposed to work on Monday, but when I stopped by to drop off the beer they were kind of in the weeds so I decided to stay. Just after the wine buyer left, and older woman came in.
"Where's my little girl with the black shoes?" was her response when I asked her if I could help her find anything.
"She's just left for the day, but I'm her assistant. What can I help you with?"
"I want some chardonnay. I usually drink the yellow kind, but I want a better one."
"The yellow kind?"
"Yes. I can't remember what it's called. The big one."

I walked her down the grocery wine aisle and she pointed to the Alic3 Wh1te Chardonnay.

"I usually drink this, but I want something better."
"Okay. Are you interested in a smaller bottle? Something more dry? More oaky? Less oaky? Do you want to try something from a different region?"
"I don't know. I just want it to be better."
"Okay. How much do you want to spend?"
Silence. Confusion.
"Can you give me a rough estimate of your price range? It doesn't matter what it is, I just need a ballpark figure."
More silence.
"Okay- how about this?" I finally venture, heading toward a bottle of La V1elle F3rme, a French Table wine. "It costs a couple dollars more than the Alice, but it's drier. More of a European style."
"Well I don't know."

I can't remember the rest of the mind-numbing exchange. I'm fairly certain that my brain has shoved it in a box in a corner with my various car accidents and other traumatic experiences, but suffice to say that she left with the big bottle of french stuff.
Half an hour later, I was heading to the loo when I saw the woman in the parking lot. She had gotten out of her car, with the bottle in one hand and a corkscrew in the other, and she was talking to another customer who had just left. I heard her mutter something along the lines of "For Pete's sake," or something to that effect. I noticed, after she turned away from the other woman and toward me, that there were several holes in the metal screw top on the bottle.
"You didn't tell me it was a screw top," she blurted accusingly.

2 comments:

Z said...

That's what I love about blogging, you've got someone to tell a great story like that and it's written down so you won't forget it later.

I won't say that I've never attacked a screw top with a corkscrew, mind you. But when the screw goes right through the cap, I do realise what I've done.

heybartender said...

It's not that I don't see how she did it. It's just that, in this day and age, do you really not know that there ARE screw tops? And did she really expect me to tell her in advance?