The Grape State of our Union

"Check out the program for the charity event I'm speaking at on Thursday," my boss said as I ducked my head into his office yesterday morning.

"'Sommelier'?"

"Yeah. That's how they referred to me. 'Wine lecture by guest sommelier'."

"Hmm... that kinda sucks."

"I know. I mean, I've passed Level 1 and all, but I'm not even employed at a restaurant."

"Well, no major harm. They just don't know what they're referring to."

"Yeah."

Fast forward five hours to cocktail hour at one of our favorite accounts.

"Get this - I talked to the charity people."

"And?"

"Conversation is going fine, finalizing details, yada yada yada... we start to wrap up and the guy goes, 'Oh, one last thing. We were hoping you wouldn't mind wearing a grape costume.'"

I nearly snorted wine out of my nose. After I recovered, the laughing began.

"What??"

"I know."

"Dude, if someone had asked me that I would have panicked and started looking around for the cameras."

"I know. Can you believe that?"

"So what did you say?"

"It went something like this - 'Ahem. Actually, I would mind.'"

"Thank god you said no. So let me ask you this - would you have been a Fruit-of-the-Loom-ish cluster, or a single grape with a stem for a hat?"

"I don't know."

"You know what would have been great? If to raise extra money for the charity they had you lie down on the floor, and charged people $10 to get a picture taken stomping on you - like they were making wine!"

"Oh my god."

At this point we were laughing so hard we could barely stand.

"You know," I mused, "This is actually a really interesting metaphor of where our society is with wine education right now. The same people who know the word sommelier, even though they grossly misused it, are asking the person referred to to actually dress up in a grape costume."

"Haha. That might be taking the whole thing a bit seriously."

"Whatever. I love a good metaphor."