More on the wine rant...

I forgot to add, amidst all the rantiness of my previous post, that I don't hate wine in and of itself; true, I don't like its taste, but then I'm not ranting against olive juice or some other decidedly repugnant drink I don't like but that other (not-quite-as-sane) people do like.

What I dislike is the cult towards wine in our society, the way something which is nothing more than a drink has been elevated to some élite status, to where it's a symbol of style and sophistication. What's the big deal about wine in particular?

I also hate how it seems impossible to have any kind of "romantic interlude" without involving either wine or champagne (which is nothing more than wine with soda farts floating in it). Who was the pompous lush who decided that for it to be romantic it must involve spoiled grape juice in some form?

So again, my rant is not due to the fact that I personally dislike wine. For instance, I like coffee; however, the way some people talk about coffee (where the beans are from, the way they're ground, the process of making the coffee, the things they add to the coffee), they make it seem as though it's rocket science and makes me want to bash in their heads with a big ceramic mug and then just blame it on a caffeine overdose. It's just coffee, people!

Follow along if you can:

Coffee beans + boiling water = coffee

Just like:

Grape juice + lack of refrigeration = wine

Drink up if you want, wine lovers, but really, get over yourselves!

News break, wine-drinkers: wine's just rancid grape juice!

I've never quite understood the fascination some people have with wine. If some extraterrestrial came down from the skies from their home planet, Fernobulax Prime, and you had to explain to him what wine was, you'd be hard-pressed to say anything that doesn't boil down to "it's rancid grape juice." Of course, Fernobulaxian's grasp of English is tenuous at best, and they get testy pretty quickly when they try to understand something and cannot, so I'd recommend avoiding this situation altogether.

But I digress. My point is, what's so damn special about spoiled grape juice, where there are people who study wines for a living and make it sound like it's such an important thing, and who come up with annoyingly hoity-toity terms to describe it, such as "earthy" or "fruity" (whereas only one adjective, "rancidy," is actually accurate, even if the word doesn't actually exist).

I guess the answer is that people are sheep. Someone in olden times (where they didn't have refrigeration and drinking rancid juice was just a normal occurrence) decided that this wasn't spoiled grape juice, mais non, Monsieur! (I've decided this person was French, and I defy you to contradict me): this was WINE! Nectar of the Gods! Heavenly ambrosia suckled from Mother Nature's liquor-engorged teats! Succulent spirit that makes you gently caress the face of angels! Rancid grape juice! Sorry, what? Too much truth on that last one? My bad!

The point is that once people got it into their heads that drinking old grape juice was not disgusting, but actually chic, then everybody started doing it to feel cool, to belong to the élite who drinks something they would have thrown out of their fridge if they didn't have a whole culture dedicated to savoring it instead. I mean, really folks: one-month old grape juice? Disgusting and trash-bound! Decades-old grape juice? Delicious and veneration-worthy! Baaaaah!

My question is, why grape juice? Can't you pretty much ferment any juice, make it alcoholic and get it to taste like ass? I will now try to see if I can get enough idiots to start drinking spoiled mango juice: I'll just give it a snobby-sounding French name, such as "manginé," say I've been aging it for decades in barrels made of wood from Noah's Ark, and that instead of tasting "fruity" or "earthy" people should notice it tastes "pious," or "religiousy" (and you'd be surprised how many people would start using those very same adjectives to describe it, too!).

You know what would make my day? If someone came up and announced to the world that this whole wine-drinking thing had been a giant practical joke, cooked up by those feisty Romans thousands of years ago, and that all wines in the world are just Welch's grape juice left out of the fridge for a month. White wine? They just added some water! Rosé wine? They added some water AND some red coloring #11! Yup: you are all ignorant, pompous asses, and nothing more than sheep for declaring which wine went best with which food or which wine should be drunk in what season of the year. It's all spoiled Welch's grape juice, morons! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

What say you? Are there any wine-lovers in the hizzouse? If there are, I must inform you that giving me money is chic and all the cool people are doing it... and you wouldn't want to be "uncool" and not give me money, would you?! ;-)

New term: "The Booger Argument"

I've always wanted to coin a turn of phrase. I envy the guys who made up the site for "jump the shark" and turned the phrase into a well-known reference being used by people who probably have no idea of its inception.

To wit, I offer up a phrase I invented, which I shall then proceed to explain and give its origin.

Presenting:

booger argument: n. something said during the course of a discussion which is so ridiculous that it is evident it is pointless to continue arguing with that person

I shall now give the etymology of this phrase:

I had caught my sister picking her nose and then happily proceed to bite the nail of the same finger she picked her nose with: I called her on it, and told her that was gross. My sister is loathe to concede defeat, so obviously she started arguing with me, asking me what was the big deal. I pointed out the rather obvious fact that boogers are dirty, and thus she could get sick. She then proceeded to shock me with what will henceforth be known as the booger argument: she said that even though I didn't eat my boogers when I was little and she did, I got a lot more strep throats in my youth and she didn't, so maybe eating boogers boosted her immune system and that's why she didn't get sick so often.

Yes: in order to win an argument, my Cornell-graduate, law-student sister actually advocated the eating of boogers. At that point I just held up my hands and said: "You know what? I can't argue with someone who has said something like that. So you win."

That, my friends, is a booger argument.

Please feel free to look for other "booger arguments" in your daily life, and if you find any, please post a reply to this post and share the wealth! :-)