Photo by Anastasia Belousova from Pexels
By Bill Stokes
Kickass, the doorstop dog, passes along the keeper’s observation that in the long, agonizing relationship between humans and booze, the advent of wineries is carrying the day; and it is being carried largely by women, which lifts it several steps up from the tradition of men hanging out in saloons.
There is no banging on winery tables and making loud challenging pronouncements about a sports or world development. There is, instead, quiet, earnest conversations of an apparent intimate nature that never require raised voices or shaking fists.
Perhaps part of this is due to how the absence of winery TV sets encourages quiet personal engagement in a relaxed social setting; but the real reason is more likely to be that when women get together to use booze to lubricate socializing, they do it with the kind of class and common sense that has never been part of men in their saloons.
As Phyllis’s partner in winery visits, the keeper reviews his long history of hanging out in taverns—largely for business purposes, of course, and concludes that in the convoluted world of humans and booze, he is now being shown “one small step by womankind;” and he and his male cohorts would be fools not to take that step.
