step away from the wine rack

friday. friday was rainy, starting early afternoon. it was pouring by 5 p.m., but my daughter needed to go to the mall to get her best friend a birthday gift.

which meant in and out of the car, twice, in the pouring rain. what i wouldn't do for my child.

i dropped her off and headed for my friday meeting, but got the "can you pick up pizza at Ventura's on your way home?" sure, because by then it will have stopped raining or there will be an ark being built somewhere.

so i ran -- in the pouring buckets rain -- into my meeting. it was a good meeting (even the bad meetings are good meetings to me) and afterward, headed back out into the rain to go get our pizza.

for the record, it was "red, white & green" -- fresh tomatoes, ricotta cheese, and spinach. so yum.

so i go in to get our pizza and it is to be picked up in their "packaged goods" section. no sweat, says i. i have been to two meetings today, have spoken to a couple of other AAs throughout my day, i am good to go. just pissy because i have to get out of the car and into the rain again.

you know how on some t.v. commercials when they want to highlight something, there is a choir of angels singing "ahhhhh" and whatever is being highlighted is backlit for emphasis? that was my lightening bolt moment -- there it stood, majestically by the cash register -- a new wine rack, in the round.

i stood about 3 feet away at first, tantalizing as it was. even "averted my gaze" as with any good train wreck, you know you should avert your eyes...but also as with any good train wreck, you simply cannot help yourself so you look. coyly, at first, but then you throw caution to the wind and actually look intently upon that thing which you know is so off-limits, you shouldn't speak of it in polite company.

good voice in my head says, "why bother looking? they have never really had a very good wine selection..."

bad voice says, "then why do you recognize so many of the labels?"

(true, that.)

inching closer, i see a label i had never noticed before -- "Genesis."

bad voice pipes up: "that's biblical, pen -- it's okay! go ahead...........touch it."

as a moth to the flame, i reached out and simply alighted on the label, felt the coolness of the glass beneath, basically wanted to pick it up and turn that bad boy over and read the label on the back....wine makers, they are so clever, no? and then came my interrupted thought from either good voice or waitress:

"You're pizza's ready."

bastards.

i paid and left, back into the pouring rain and thought "whew, that was a close one!" called another AA who is hurting, ate my dinner, and never gave it another thought. i am healing, folks.

then i woke up.

saturday morning, i couldn't get that flipping bottle out of my head. my first thought wasn't "Good morning God! what have You in store for me?" it was "i think it was either a Cab or a Merlot -- i wonder if it clings to the glass when you give it a swirl? what is the aroma like? what do you think it would hurt....."

enter good voice: "Get to a meeting."

okay, good thought. 10:00? no, max needs the car. 7p.m.? no, by then you will have gone back to Ventura's to buy that wine...7a.m.? yes. and give it up as the "has anyone had the desire of a drink today?" thought and get on with your day.

so i did. and it helped. and someone at the meeting reminded me that there may be other places that would be safer for me to get pizza from on my way home...that it doesn't necessarily have to be from a tavern.

(ya think??)

and i thought the only reason i would be bothered by going in there was because it was the bazillionth time i had gotten out of the car and gone into the rain. instead, it went much deeper than that.

alcohol: cunning, baffling, powerful. and that Genesis wine? it would only have been the beginning of a yet another Fall of woman.