Liquor store madness

You win some a-a-and you lose some
And you save nothing for a rainy day

This snippet of a song from Carter USM, a band I'm sure none of you have ever heard of, is going around my head today. It's not just the lyrics, it was the way Fruitbat sang them, dude. Such melancholy, such feeeling.

Trouble is, when am I going to win some?

Stopped at the liquor store yesterday on my way home from work. The two store clerks were all over me like a bad suit. I think it was a quiet day. That, or they knew they had a sucker on their hands who would be buying more than a 4-pack of strong beer. I stood looking at the Champagnes and sparkling wines. The clerks came over to try to help me. I said I didn't really need help, I was quite happy looking. The first clerk made a feeble joke about the Dom Perignon being available if I wanted that, that they had the "fancy-schmancy" stuff all right. Then he repeated "fancy-schmancy" several times. I think he liked the sound of his own voice. He asked if I could tell he had a New York accent from the way he said "fancy-schmancy". I said "uh-huh, yeah, right, I don't want the Dom Perignon, thanks." Then he tried to sell me some Californian sparkling wine. I was pondering it, as after all I'd also picked up the Chambord to mix in (thanks, Serenity, for the tip) so I didn't need the world's best-tasting Champagne to go with it. Then the second clerk recommended the "Voove". "Voove?" said I, with a raised eyebrow, and said in my snootiest English accent "what an interesting pronunciation. I've never heard it pronounced Voove before." What can I say, they were pissing me off already. The first guy started getting defensive. I said "sorry, it's just where I come from everybody knows it as Veuve Clicquot, sorry, verve cleek-oh". The first guy started saying that he couldn't speak French, apart from saying "haw-he-haw" as he practically brayed the stereotypical French utterance. I stared at him. He made a few more guttural attempts at being a Frenchman along the lines of "haw-HAW". I gaped. Then he said "doesn't Voove mean aunt anyway? Isn't it someone's aunt? Isn't there a story about how it got its name?" I pointed out that aunt would be tante, so I wasn't quite sure that Veuve meant that, but didn't know what it was supposed to mean as I wasn't a follower of all things Champagne. [Though I have since remembered that veuve means widow, so he was almost kinda sorta right.] I was starting to want out of there, fast. The Californian sparkling wine was starting to look mighty good, mostly because it was the nearest bottle to hand and I could make my exit quickly.

First store clerk was by now in his stride. He seemed to think he'd been incredibly funny with the French noises and launched into a tale of how people keep telling him he should do stand-up but they didn't realize how difficult stand-up comedy was to do. I made a polite comment or two, thinking that he would definitely bomb if I were in the audience and he tried to make me laugh. Then he starts telling me he is a cartoonist and had quite a successful cartoon on the internet for a while, but he ran out of material because there was only one character. And you know what the cartoon was called? Of course, OF FUCKING COURSE, it was The Angry Fetus. It was all about a fetus who likes kicking his mom to make her pay for doing yoga. And other such things. The guy started miming being an angry fetus and kicking. And then jabbing with his elbows. He was getting into his stride, laughing at how hysterically funny he was being, telling me it was quite a hit with the ladies. I grabbed two bottles of the Californian sparkling and stomped off to the counter to make him work the till and stop talking.

I ask you. The Angry Fetus. Can an infertile ever fucking not be reminded of these things? Especially on the day she finds out she won't have a fetus, angry or otherwise, because her embryos are now dead. D-e-a-d. Dead. No more. Deceased. Not to be. At the cost of a nice car, gone up in smoke.

So I drank a whole bottle of sparkling vino last night. The Chambord was nice, though I have to admit, I prefer creme de cassis as a mixer. The booze did not make me feel any better. It didn't feel like an anti-celebration. Just a bit squalid because the first few glasses were just downed in anger. And I promise I didn't intend to scarf the whole bottle. It just kind of happened. There I was trimming the cork so it would fit back in the half-full bottle that I would save for today, when I realized that actually far from being half-full there was only one glass left in the bottle. Oops! I couldn't put it back in the fridge with just one glass full in there, could I? Next time I shall go for the mojitos. Maybe that'll work better.

Needless to say, I'm a tad hungover this morning. And filled with a nice healthy dose of self-loathing and self-pity, which always come along with a hangover. And a smidgen of anger at this ridiculous situation. So at least the booze helped to free up some feelings, after all.