I got to go grocery shopping today while my wife cleaned the house. We had arrived at this assignment of duties after some skilled negotiation on my part. I had planned on going to the local Emart that is two blocks away, but we ended up calling my Brother-in-Law to see what he was up to. Since he has a new car, and wasn’t busy, he agreed to come over and take me to Costco. This was the first time I got to really ride around in his nice new car, so it was pretty cool.
He and I went around Costco doing the grocery shopping together. All he needed were some new black socks to satisfy his corporate dress code. I also bought some fruit for my Mother-in-Law. I made sure to keep to my grocery list, and had my wife consult on what we needed.
The only thing I splurged on was a bottle of wine. The only reason I bought that was because there were free samples, and it went down smooth. It was a sweet wine that didn’t make me cringe. If I didn’t buy it at that time, I’d have NEVER found the same brand and year again.
I’ve already had this experience. Last year, I had the best glass of wine at my favorite Italian restaurant in Korea. It was a sweet red wine, and it was just wonderful with the meal. It was the best wine I’ve ever had with a meal. Instead of picking up a bottle to bring home, I decided to just try to find the brand on my own. I apparently drank from the very last bottle of this particular wine in existence in Korea, and never was able to find another wine quite like it.
I’m not really a wine drinker, but that’s simply because I haven’t found any wine brand, or type, that I like, and it’s too expensive to just buy wine to find something. The wine I had at the Italian restaurant was the only wine I could get my wife to drink more than a sip, so I’d have loved to actually brought home something we could both enjoy.
If I buy something we don’t like, I’ll be drinking the entire thing. My wife only rarely drinks wine, and unless it’s very good, won’t drink without complaining. We had three bottles sitting in the refrigerator for this exact reason. They were given as gifts. We’d both have a glass, and she’d never want to drink it with another meal. Then it’s up to me to finish the bottle. Again.
Since I don’t drink much wine very often, usually once a month at most, we slowly accumulate half finished bottles. I’m sure we give the impression of being heavy drinkers working our way through three bottles of wine at the same time when people peek in our fridge, but we’ve been working on the same bottles for a year!
The last few times Costco had free wine samples, I’ve tasted them trying to find another wine that doesn’t make me wince. I told myself that if I found another that I liked, I’d pick it up. Admittedly, the wine sample I had was very small, but I liked what I had. I’ve worked through one of our other bottles of half finished wine, and have one MORE really strong wine to work through before I can get to the stuff I bought today however. It will likely be a long time before that gets open.
We brought home the goods, and by the time we had returned, the house was clean, Yoshi had a wash, and my Brother-in-Law had to go home to snag a parking spot at his comically overcrowded apartment complex parking lot.
