Dear Sacre Bleu

We receive a great deal of email and now and then some of it stands out as a bit unusual, perhaps even quirky. We decided to share this particular email from a young man named Jeremy. He seems to be in transition.

This may not be the best way to start a letter to a wine company but I don't know much about wine. I gotta be honest I don't even particularly like it. It's not so much wine itself, but in my experience the people who drink it are pretentious snob pricks who I typically can't stand. The glass sniffing, the wine swirling, the cork smelling - these idiots live in their own little world, don't they? No offense of course, I just don't understand it. And my 'ignorance' prevents me from dicking around with anything that involves that much work just to spit it out. It's not for me. Just let me enjoy my drink - key word being DRINK, as in, to ingest liquid. Fucking around with it and treating it like a baby only to end up not even consuming it makes absolutely no sense. Hell, even the friends of mine who have started drinking it kind of suck anymore. Don't give me the high and mighty. We used to do beer bongs like it was our job. And now you want to come at me with this grandiose, highfalutin attitude? Screw that. With all that being said, I stumbled onto your some of your wine recently and that whole deal was sorta strange.

Last weekend, I went out of town with some of the guys to get a change of scenery. Nothing special, just five dudes getting out of town for a night of debauchery. We like that. All we wanted to do was pony up to a local bar, have a few drinks, and get loaded. We started off going to dinner. My buddy Mike offered to pay for the meal for helping him move a few weeks earlier. We obliged and the rest of us went outside to grab a smoke while they were paying. On our way out to the truck, Lamont (our other buddy), decides it would be a good idea to keep the night alive by shotgunning a beer in the parking lot while we're waiting. I like that about Lamont. He's always thinking. When we got to the truck, we found that I was apparently the only one who could successfully puncture the beer can with my keys without cutting my hand off or spilling it everywhere, so I was in charge. I like to think I have leadership qualities. The first beer sprayed all over our driver. He didn't see the humor in it. I wanted to keep the peace so the other beers were pointed away from him while I readied the cans. Only problem was that instead of spraying all over our driver they were spraying all over a truck parked next to us. Yeah, it was kind of a dick move, but nothing I would lose any sleep over being a leader and all.

So Ryan, Lamont, and I are slamming these beers. We all kind of stop midway through to catch our breath and here comes a guy walking from across the parking lot towards us. I said to Ryan, "There is no fucking way this is his truck."

He and Lamont see the guy, freak out, and take off running like a bunch of thieves to hide. I walk over to see them hiding and giggling like a bunch of schoolgirls by the tire. I just shake my head, and lean over the bed of the truck to finish my beer. While all this was happening, sure as shit, this guy walks up to the truck. He doesn't say a word but he keeps giving me the stink eye. Then he finally starts to walk around to the other side. I look down and act like I can't see him. He sets his bag down and checks out the truck, then…"What the fuck did you guys do to my truck?" I act like the village idiot. "Oh, sorry we were just drinking beer and some probably sprayed a little on your truck. They've been in this cooler all day so they were probably shook up. Sorry man."

This guy is nicely dressed; slacks, white button down shirt, loosened tie, neatly shaven with a moustache, so I am thinking he will accept my pseudo apology and move on, annoyed. He kind of turned on us instead. He looks right at me and almost yells, "You owe me money for a car wash." What, what; car wash? You know how when you lie to someone and get busted out how your first instinct is to get pissed at them because they don't believe you? That's pretty much what happened here. I kind of have a confused look on my face and I think this pissed him off even moree. "Give. Me. Money. For a fucking car wash!" he yells at me again. I started walking around the truck to talk to him face to face. Now Mike has come out of the restaurant and doesn't know what the hell is going on. I get right in front of the guy and say, "Can someone give the Monopoly man $5 bucks so he can get back to Park Avenue and we can get out of here." I reach in my wallet and grab $5 so we can end this little tea party. I go to hand it to him and our driver says, "Dude, I already gave him $5." The guy gets a crazy, cross-eyed look about him. "Here's what I think of your goddamn money," and he tears the $5 bill in about 20 different pieces. Shit, I've had it with this guy. "If you're just going to tear it up, what was the point to all of this?" He launches into a speech about respect and "You wouldn't have said anything if I didn't call you on it first," and, "It's a matter of principal," and blah, blah, blah. I tell him that I am out the money either way and if all he wanted was to preach, it was worth $5 to see him get punked out and act like a fucking idiot. He gets in his truck and peels off. We all kind of stand around wondering what the hell just happened.

Then we see his bag sitting on the ground. We look around to make sure he is all the way gone and run over to grab it. Lamont kneels down around the sack and starts rooting around like a badger. He yells out, "Sacre Bleu!" "What, so you're gay now Frenchy?" Mike says. "No fuck hole, its wine. As in Sacre Bleu Wine." The rest of the bag had some grocery items, a couple candles, two bottles of the wine, and The Notebook on DVD. So it wasn't enough that he was going to be a shitty date, but he had to start his night by schooling us with a little lesson in R-E-S-P-E-C-T. How nice of him.

I kept the wine, but have yet to try it. At this point it's a matter of principle. That prick is the exact reason I can't stand you winos in the first place. I kept the tore up $5 bill to remind me of the story and I'll keep a bottle for the same reason. If I get hard up some time, maybe I'll give it a try. I wouldn't count on converting me but I'll let you know.

Whatever,
Jeremy