Tuesday, September 13, 2016

Wine without a corkscrew

A couple of friends were visiting at a motel about  30 minutes away.  I decided to visit them for the afternoon and brought along two bottles of wine.  The thought of bringing along a corkscrew never entered my mind.  Every hotel has a corkscrew, right?

No, wrong, very wrong.  The desk clerk, who had obviously taken his "I don't care" pill that morning, quickly denied having one, as if we had requested a pound of heroin. The Cracker Barrel next door, which had a rich assortment of items nobody could possibly need--a motorized Santa who climbs stairs, anyone?  With his own musical accompaniment?   They were loaded with Christmas tree ornaments, key rings, bracelets, shoehorns, bumper stickers and other necessities of life, but the possibility of opening a bottle of wine was a completely foreign concept.

So we spent our time sitting in the lobby, asking hotel guests who had wandered in if they had such a thing.  No one did.  Remind me to stay the hell out of Maryland, everybody.

My friends decided to conceal the wine in their luggage, and drink it when they returned to Illinois.