You Win the Goblets, I'll Steal the Merlot

Mom and Dad were no sooner out the door, when I began fumbling with the bobby pin in the lock on the liquor cabinet. I had managed only once in my lack-luster liquor-lifting career to successfully bypass the security on the cabinet door. Unfortunately, that instance was a time when neither experience nor wisdom were on my side, and my parents were only as far away as the basement. I ended up having to flee the scene of the crime before taking so much as a mental picture of what booze lay hidden away. The telephone had rung and my father had bolted up the stairs, through the dining room and into the kitchen to answer it. “Why didn’t you get that?”, he inquired as he hurried past. I didn’t think I should tell him the truth – you know, like, “Well Dad, you see it’s like this – I was in the middle of making off with your Jack Daniels and some twenty-year-old Scotch, and I was pouring it into this little mason jar when the phone rang and I didn’t really have time to put everything away and get the call so I thought I would just wait for you to get it, since it was probably for you anyway.” Instead, I answered that I was looking for some wrapping paper to put on a birthday present for grandma. “Grandma’s birthday isn’t for another six months, and besides there’s no wrapping paper in there . . . get outta there and don’t go into that cabinet – that’s not yours.” Anyway, that was the only other time that I defeated the non-high-tech system safeguarding the liquor storage. This time, I was more savvy – smart enough to make sure that Mom and Dad were not on the premises and to make sure that I would have ample time to examine my choices carefully and select the spirits best suited for my upcoming weekend adventure.

There were the usual half-empty bottles of rum and tequila and Canadian Club and so on. These were tempting enough but I knew from previous experience that they could pack a knock-out punch when it came to functioning like a normal human being. Given what was up for the weekend, I wanted to be at least slightly coherent. Anyway, it didn’t matter because this time, the liquor cabinet had been recently stocked with nearly a dozen bottles of what appeared to be wine – Merlot (possibly pronounced ‘Mer-lott’, I thought??) so it was just a guess at that point, as I was really not a connoisseur. The bottles didn't appear to have screw tops which was unfortunate, as that would have made the contents handier to access in a variety of circumstances and illegal drinking scenarios. But, whatever, they looked nice – kind of like stately soldiers, all standing there on guard together. They had pictures of kangaroos on their labels and the percentage alcohol was over twice that of beer which, as I had been told, meant that a person could drink less and still get a decent buzz. The 13.5% alcohol was substantially less than that touted on the other hard liquor bottles so I figured it would be safer and I would probably be able to hide the fact from parents, other adults, etc., that I actually had been drinking. The most attractive feature, however, of this particular item was that there were enough unopened bottles in the cabinet, that if I took one and then rearranged the rest to fill up some empty spaces, my parents probably wouldn’t notice that one was missing.

We had a hired hand on our farm by the name of Jonas. Jonas was barely twenty years old and so was only a few years older than me at the time. Jonas had a jet-black 1965 Chevy Impala two-door convertible with a 327 cubic inch engine, four-on-the-floor and an all-leather red interior, complete with fuzzy dice and AM/FM radio and a speedometer that took up half the dashboard and showed up to 140 mph on the display. The car said a lot about Jonas. Jonas was from just west of the city so he didn’t know a lot of people around my home town. Consequently, he befriended me and my younger brother. He would drive us into town on Saturday nights or, pile us and some of our friends into the car to go to the drive-in shows. Jonas started working at our farm the previous fall and would normally have been let go right after seeding was finished, to make room for my brother and I to take over for the summer months when we weren’t at school. My Dad decided to keep Jonas on for the entire year this time. He was a nice fellow and he got along so well with everyone on the farm. He was just like another one of the kids. In his first, summer on our farm, Jonas was given a few days off to go home to visit his parents and to take in some of the annual summer fair in the city. He asked me if I would like to go along and spend some time at the exhibition with him. My brother would stay home and help dad with chores and any field work while I was away with Jonas.

I asked my parents about it as soon as Jonas presented me with the idea. It didn’t take long for them to agree. They thought the world of Jonas and they knew I would be safe in his hands. I spent the rest of the week looking forward to the trip, on several levels. First, it was always a relief to get off the farm and to leave behind all the chores and regimen that went with that. I also really liked the city and especially the exhibition and all the people and rides and dances. Another reason I was keen on the trip, was that I had been writing to a girl from the city – a girl that I had met on a school field trip a few months prior. I might now have a chance to see her for parts of two whole days and maybe even ask her on a 'date', although at the time, I had no idea what a 'date' was or what such an endeavor would entail. Even the word 'date' was utterly foreign to me, only having thought the word without ever speaking it. Regardless, I was certain that the city and the Fair would provide an environment that was made just for romance and young love. And, if the Fair did not offer the necessary environment, I had a back-up plan from my parent’s liquor cabinet, hidden beneath the seat of Jonas’s car.

The Fair sponsored nightly dances in an open-air auditorium. The dances lasted two or three hours from just after sundown to maybe midnight. After the dances were over, the midway, with all the rides and lights and sounds and food smells and people, stayed open even longer.

As arranged, I met the girl, at the entrance gates. To my great surprise and pleasure, she reached for my hand and held it as we walked around the exhibition grounds. My heart did a major flip and pumped great quantities of blood to my face where, I am sure, it could be easily noticed by others. Her name was Cassandra and she was as tall as I was and carried herself like a dancer or someone very athletic. She had long straight dark brown hair and cute little glasses that perched low on her turned up nose. I was so attracted to her and with the way she squeezed my hand, I believed that the feeling was mutual. This would be a great two days – I had no doubt.

We walked up and down the midway and rode on rides and played games and then we ate supper. I had been saving money from doing chores on the farm so I had enough to buy Cassandra a really nice five-course meal. We had hot dogs and corn-on-the-cob and milk shakes. We finished off with dessert consisting of chocolate sundaes and cotton candy floss. I was so nervous about eating in front of Cassandra. I had a crush on her and I didn’t want her to think that I was some sort of farm hick that didn't know which plastic cutlery to use first and so on. After supper we went on some more rides and later went to the open-air dance. It was really a lot of fun. About half-way through the dance, I asked Cassandra if she would like to go to the car and have a glass of wine. She perhaps was more of a wine aficionado than I was, because she laughed every time I said the word ‘Merlott’. She had won two glass goblets playing some game on the midway so we used those for drinking as we sat in the back seat of the car. They were rather large goblets so, when we finished, we stumbled back to the dance and slow-danced together until the night was over. My date laughed a lot but never really looked right at me. There were a lot of other things going on so that was alright. It seemed like she was having a very good time. I sort of felt like, “The glow from the merlot had made a fool of me.”

After the dance ended and we had ridden on the Ferris Wheel one last time, Jonas drove us to Cassandra’s house and I walked her to the side door. I wanted to kiss her ‘good night’ but it appeared that she didn’t want that. It was alright though. The evening had been a lot of fun. We had shared some good times – made some memories and had some laughs. Maybe all that was enough for a first date.

We continued on to Jonas’s home outside of the city. After I got into his house, I went to the bathroom to get ready for bed. I looked in the mirror to brush my teeth and there, stuck between my big beaver front teeth, was this huge bright yellow kernel of corn – a kernel of corn not washed away by milkshakes or ice cream or even a glass of Merlot – a leftover from supper no doubt. I felt sick – like crawling in a hole. I had walked around with, talked to, laughed with, and smiled at the girl of my dreams for the last few hours with this not-so-delicate morsel stuck between my teeth. I couldn’t believe I hadn’t noticed it or that Cassandra hadn’t said anything. Maybe she gave hints but I didn’t pick up on them. Maybe that’s why she never really looked right at me all night – she was grossed out!! Maybe that’s why she didn’t want to kiss me ‘Good night!’ - she was grossed out!! By rights a kernel that size should have been displacing my top lip. I should have felt it. My brain must have been numb with love or something.

I didn’t talk to Cassandra again for about four years. We got together once in a while when I moved to the city to attend University. Although I thought about it several times, I was never able to muster the courage to ask her if she had noticed the corn kernel in my teeth that summer evening way back in that previous lifetime - when we shared our first date - when we shared that glass of Merlot.