Things Girls Do After Graduation: Wine Tasting

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The awkwardness that loomed from Sunday’s one-sided “I love you,” lasted until after work when she met Todd for drinks at their favorite local dive bar. They talked all day, but certainly did not confront the elephant in the room through texts. After ordering two local microbrews and an order of nachos to split, she finally brought it up with a strange sense of guilt in her voice. Before she could get a full sentence out about feeling uncomfortable about the entire situation, Todd interjected.

“Don’t feel uncomfortable, I love you too.”

Her face was a blend of surprised and overjoyed, but Todd knew what had to be done for fear of having a blow up in the middle of his favorite watering hole. There they sat laughing with one another while the ballgame played in the background. Around 9 o’clock, they decided to head home after sorting out their weekly schedules. When Saturday came up, she asked, “We’re still doing the wine tasting with Katie and Finn?” Reluctantly, they both agreed to follow through with the event.

Both hungover, they spent their individual Saturday mornings trying to recover. Todd did his staple hangover cure — two Alka Seltzer, a large Glacier Freeze Gatorade, and a packet of Emergenc-C — before sitting on his couch flipping between SportsCenter on a loop and Weekend At Bernie’s on Comedy Central.

Meanwhile, she spent her hungover morning doing what she always does (and by always, it’s really over the last two months): avocado toast, Starbucks, and Facetime with her “besties” who claim to be “still drunk from the night before” even though they’re not.

“Oh my God, Todd has never been better. We finally said it this week,” she explained as they all squealed in high-pitched noises reminiscent of a herd of hamsters. She explained that they were doing a wine tasting later that day and the reactions were a mixture of “jelly” and “Ugh, I love wine. I’ve, like, totally thought about taking sommelier classes.”

“Okay, speaking of, I need to go. The class is in two hours and I have to get ready. Love you, bitches,” she said as she hung up on the FaceTime only to lie facedown on the couch for another hour as Sperry played on her back.

Meeting at the restaurant that’s hosting the wine tasting — Provisions, a new farm-to-table restaurant getting rave reviews from all the 25-year-old “foodies” on Yelp — the foursome arrives five minutes later than everyone else who coughed up the $65 for a spot. The girls, feeling guilty, immediately started schmoozing with the sommelier on hand while Todd fist-bumped Finn after Finn said, “Fuck this, I’m just here to get drunk.”

The two couples sat down next to another couple that came with the girl’s parents. The couple, who were newly engaged, showed off their ring to the girls while Todd and Finn scanned the menu for the highest ABV white and reds.

“Todd, come here and look at her ring,” she said with her eyes fixated on the 2 carat monstrosity.

“Holy shit,” Todd responded. “Yeah, uh, could be a while and I wouldn’t count on anything that big.” His honesty, while brutal, was greeted with laughter from the parents sitting adjacent to him. Everyone else’s laughter followed suit as Finn quietly hated himself for the .75 carat ring on Katie’s finger. Hoping no one would comment, Katie sat dejected looking for a waiter who could provide her with a “dry chardonnay.”

The waiter finally came only to pour a series of 2-ounce samples for the group of eight. They each had a notepad in front of them provided by the restaurant that included the wine names, a rating system, and a few lines for notes on each of the wines. Katie and Finn were too busy whisper-arguing to take any notes while the engaged couple and their parents took it all too seriously.

She looked over at Todd and asked which wine was his favorite. Shrugging, he poured two similarly colored 2-ounce samples of white wine and poured them into the same glass. Embarrassed yet laughing, she remarked “Oh my Godddd, Todd! You’re so bad!”

She peered over at his notes after filling hers out. She had Googled proper terms earlier and wrote down any and all of the terms that she could remember from “Wine Not,” a wine blog curated by a 22-year-old senior who went to Bucknell.

“Dry, low acidity, well-balanced, full-bodied,” her notes read.

Todd’s read, “Tasty as hell, fuckin’ GOOD, tastes like white wine, could drink a million of these, grape-y.” Upon reading his inept yet funny notes, she took a photo and added it to her Snapchat story for everyone to see. The story, which had the second darker filter applied to it, included the red wine and mustached man Emojis in addition to a caption that read, “standard.”

Todd put his arm around her and said, “This is fun,” before hailing down the waiter to ask if he could purchase “the most reasonably priced bottle of Sauvignon Blanc you’re offering at the tasting.”

And for that moment, there was harmony. .

Image via Shutterstock

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Will

Will (Twitter / Instagram) is the host of The Sunday Scaries Podcast.

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