Chug This? OKAY.

I would love to tell a love story about one glass of Merlot wine but everyone knows, no good love story starts or ends with one glass of Merlot... Let me set the stage for you:

I’m 24 years old. I have lived my ‘live fast die hard’ stage. For Gods sake, I was a bassist in an all girl psychadelic rock band throughout college in my grimly desert town. But at 24, I am graduated, distinguished, landed the fancy PR job in a high socio-economic beach town. I’m newly single. Life has taken a huge change and I am embracing its movements. And that’s why I say “yes” to a first date with a commericial real-estate agent five years older than me.

And I hate to admit that this is in fact my first date where a gentleman has made reservations. Let’s just say this type of treatment isn’t what I’m used to where I am from. We are at an expensive Spanish restaurant and I am fully believing myself that I deserve to be here, I am bledining in~

We are making decent small talk for first date standards. The waitress comes by and my date orders everything for us. ‘Strange’, I think in my head. I’ve never had a man order for me? But just going with the flow, I try to embrace this new life.

When the waitress comes back with sample glasses of different wines, he hands me a Merlot and says “try this”. To which I *hear* “Chug this” and say, “Chug this? OKAY”. I say this sincerely, as if I am flirting. I die-hard think that he will be swooned and if not impressed by quickness to have A. a good time and B. Making the most out of a free sample. But no.

He looks at me dead in the eye as I wipe my mouth and says, “I said *try* this”.

My face turns hot. I realize at that moment I am outed- no salary and 401k benefits can wipe the desert girl off my face. Am I embarrassed? Not really. I continue to listen as he tells me the first time he got high in college, he decided to become a real-estate agent and I midway through his sentence have a huge realization that no matter what trajectory my life takes, I will never enjoy a taste of wine.

No, my memories of Merlot are different.

The first time I had a bottle with my friends, it was a warm summer night in the desert. The kind of summer night where the air was still and crickets were loud. We parked on the hilltop and as we drank, life rang lound and true. A moment turned into a memory instantaneously. What is it about Merlot, that makes life feel slower, and more purposeful?

There was that bottle of Merlot I shared with friends at a house party in my hometown when the desert was cold and windy. In the garage we drank our wine and took a shot of whsieky to warm our bodies. It was that night, I found out my favorite dancing conconction: Whiskey and wine! We listened to Lykke Li and New Wave, we listened to Old Blues and Led Zeppelin. I’ll never forget the boots I was wearing, I’ll never forget mid-song a friend by the name of Fernando with green hair taking a sombrero off the wall in the garage and announcing “I will now put this on the most passionate dancer” and then laying it on my head as I continued to dance the night away with my friends.

And of course, a year later when I was playing a show at a house party in the summer. Dressed in black-leather fringe and red-lipstick with a bottle of wine in my hand. A girl in 2013 who could quite easily be mistaken for a woman in the 70’s, holding a bottle of Merlot like it was her magic wand. Turning heads as I walked up a drive way a young man said, “there’s no way you’re going to finish that”. Mid-way through the set I took my last drink from the bottle, the young man cheering as I did, as the tiny crowd at the tiny house party show, swayed and swooned and grooved~

So yes, fastforward. The year is 2016. Like I said, I am graduated, distinguished, have a PR job in a fancy beach town. But no, I have not forgotten. The ‘Me’ that lived life to the fullest, that flame still burns. And if it took embarrassing myself at a fancy restaurant to remind me of this fact, then so be it. And I hold to my own personal testament that wine isn’t for the elitist of the world, its for those who embrace life. The people willing to look time in the face and say, “I will indulge”. Chug this? OKAY takes on the form a mantra- that no matter what trajectory I take in life, no matter how much money I make or new friends I meet, I know for a FACT that no good love story starts with a glass of Merlot, it starts with a bottle.

So what was the fate of the commercial real-estate agent who never had a second glass? Needless to say, thee was no second date. But the year now is 2021 and I still stand by mantra: Chug this? OKAY.