Death By Zinfandel

Have you ever had a smell that just sticks with you? Something that reminds you of your past and every time you smell it, it takes you back in time to that moment. For me, it's the smell of wine. White Zinfadel to be more precise but any wine will do it.

Whenever the scent tickles my nose...I want to throw up. No fond memories for Zin and me I'm afraid...it's too bad really, we used to be good friends. We watched sappy movies together, shared lovely dinners and even a few memorable evenings. Everything was going well, we even accompanied a friend to Charleston for his fraternity formal. Unfortunately that is where everything fell apart. During dinner, I had a few innocent glasses of wine to loosen up because I was surrounded by strangers and several of the "Brothers" girlfriends had made it clear they would love nothing more than for me to choke to death during dinner. Apparently they didn't take too kindly to their boyfriends making polite conversation with me.

At any rate, with each death ray I was shot, I had another drink. Then we started dancing and everytime I stopped by our table my wine glass had miraculously filled itself again. Amazing. We danced for hours and I felt perfectly fine...until we got on the shuttle headed back to the hotel. (Little did I know that I had actually ended up drinking 7 glasses of wine and 3 margaritas). The moment I sat down, it was as if my body had lifted up and had suddenly been slammed back down with amazing force, leaving me disoriented and foggy headed. I do have one clear memory of walking through the lobby with Andy and his friends and I had to keep talking to myself, "Walk properly, one foot in front of the other. That's it. Very good, you havent' tripped once..you're almost to the elevator now. Whatever you do, DON'T EMBARRASS ANDY." And to my credit, I didn't... at least that night. I made it upstairs in one peice and threw up only once that night, after I was able to make the room stop spinning in circles. They're tricky, those spinning rooms.

The real test of friendship came the next morning when we had to leave very early and very hungover in order to make the 5 hour trip home so that I could go back to work. Anyone who has been to Charleston knows that it is a lovely city with beautiful cobblestoned streets. However, when you're hungover to the point of laying in the floor of the passenger side, resting your head on the seat, the last thing you want to do is travel on cobblestone. Every bump sent my stomach into momentary spasms and with only a moments warning, Andy was able to pull off the road seconds before I wretched. After a moment of silence and a shirt change, Andy and I were back on the road. Thus forever ending my friendship with Zinfandel.