Yudhishthira
Mueller doesn't know it, but I slept in my car in front of the winery last night. It became obvious to me around two in the morning that I wasn't getting a call back about the place I was supposed to be spending the night. Dog and I drive to the winemaking facility and sleep until about 8, then off to Starbucks(!) for coffee in the beautiful town that is not Richland. I am crusty and cranky but at least have the Times when Mueller rolls up. I introduce him to dog.
Passive aggressive he waits until I have some barrels outside to work on before he lets me know dog can't be there. It's an industrial facility he tells me. Liability. No mention of the other dog that hangs out there. He would feel worse than I would if something happened to him. Not, though, if he was a cat. He has two dogs. Maybe I could tie him up.
The logic of knots is eluding me at the moment, most of my intellectual capacity consumed by figuring out how to shove a bottle of wine up this guy's ass in the most painful manner possible. I imagine something similar to a medieval catapult with spikes, just so it looks tougher.
Now, the background. I was already seething, trying to figure out what Mueller had against me. I learned last night that he had approached Papi and told him he had smelled marijuana on me, but that he couldn't be certain. Maybe I was wearing a t-shirt from my high school days, and it was his honest mistake, but seeing as I haven't smoked the stuff in a few years, I became confused how he might have thought what he thought. Then I got pissed off. Rather than approaching me, he did the end-around and went to the big guy first. Classic passive aggressive.
Instead of making an attempt with the wine bottle, I wipe away the tears of rage that have formed, grab my water out of the refrigerator and drive to Starbucks, embracing the affront that is having to suffer Starbucks more in one day than I have in ten years. I am 40 minutes closer to Portland than if I were in the city. I am about to drive home. Home being Portland, home being unemployed and white and angry.
I call Mueller and ask him what his problem with me is. It's not me, he says, repeating the industrial facility and liability lines so many times that I have sworn I will never drink a wine from a producer that makes more than 20 thousand cases in a year. Industrial facility without a dog. Wines you can't trust. I am thinking about starting a label that only brokers wines made by dog friendly wineries. He tells me it is about risk management and that no bottle of wine is worth anyone's life. I couldn't agree more, but the reality is that his scared, sterile perspective is so illustrative of what is wrong with Western Civilization right now that I want to throttle him. I want to grab him by the neck and let my bacteria laden saliva speckle his face as I yell, "there is nothing sure, there is nothing safe. You might die in a minute, don't spend that minute immobilized and controlled by fear." Instead I hang up on his sniveling and drive back to the city.
The good to come of it is this. Part of my interest in coming to California was to see if all those who insist that my perspective on thoughtfully made, small production wines is naive had a point. "Go work in a winery" they said. "It will give you a better perspective." Well, I've got one. The only use I have for a bottle of industrially made swill has everything to do with Mueller's ass.
Passive aggressive he waits until I have some barrels outside to work on before he lets me know dog can't be there. It's an industrial facility he tells me. Liability. No mention of the other dog that hangs out there. He would feel worse than I would if something happened to him. Not, though, if he was a cat. He has two dogs. Maybe I could tie him up.
The logic of knots is eluding me at the moment, most of my intellectual capacity consumed by figuring out how to shove a bottle of wine up this guy's ass in the most painful manner possible. I imagine something similar to a medieval catapult with spikes, just so it looks tougher.
Now, the background. I was already seething, trying to figure out what Mueller had against me. I learned last night that he had approached Papi and told him he had smelled marijuana on me, but that he couldn't be certain. Maybe I was wearing a t-shirt from my high school days, and it was his honest mistake, but seeing as I haven't smoked the stuff in a few years, I became confused how he might have thought what he thought. Then I got pissed off. Rather than approaching me, he did the end-around and went to the big guy first. Classic passive aggressive.
Instead of making an attempt with the wine bottle, I wipe away the tears of rage that have formed, grab my water out of the refrigerator and drive to Starbucks, embracing the affront that is having to suffer Starbucks more in one day than I have in ten years. I am 40 minutes closer to Portland than if I were in the city. I am about to drive home. Home being Portland, home being unemployed and white and angry.
I call Mueller and ask him what his problem with me is. It's not me, he says, repeating the industrial facility and liability lines so many times that I have sworn I will never drink a wine from a producer that makes more than 20 thousand cases in a year. Industrial facility without a dog. Wines you can't trust. I am thinking about starting a label that only brokers wines made by dog friendly wineries. He tells me it is about risk management and that no bottle of wine is worth anyone's life. I couldn't agree more, but the reality is that his scared, sterile perspective is so illustrative of what is wrong with Western Civilization right now that I want to throttle him. I want to grab him by the neck and let my bacteria laden saliva speckle his face as I yell, "there is nothing sure, there is nothing safe. You might die in a minute, don't spend that minute immobilized and controlled by fear." Instead I hang up on his sniveling and drive back to the city.
The good to come of it is this. Part of my interest in coming to California was to see if all those who insist that my perspective on thoughtfully made, small production wines is naive had a point. "Go work in a winery" they said. "It will give you a better perspective." Well, I've got one. The only use I have for a bottle of industrially made swill has everything to do with Mueller's ass.
posted by Jassmond at 3:14 PM
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