I was going to title this “Wine is like Mink,” but then I realized that wine reproduces as quickly as minks or rabbits, or maybe as quickly. There would have been other ways that I could have alluded to it, but this will suffice. I am always amazed when I speak to people and they claim that they cannot acquire a wine cellar, because they drink the wine too quickly. I am not sure if that is said in jest, or with tongue in cheek, because in this household wine is consumed quite regularly and we maintain a cellar.

Boy do we maintain a cellar. In the world of Neil Simon’s “The Odd Couple” most people might think of me as Felix Ungar, because I come off rather fastidious, especially in my attire, but I call that an “occupational hazard.” When it comes to certain things like putting cases of wine away, then I become like Oscar Madison. I guess there is just a part of me that gets lazy and need some prodding to put stuff away. I mean I enjoy the concept of having the wine collection, but sometimes that I just get overwhelmed with the logistics of collecting. Then when I force myself to put everything away, I become like Felix again, as I get fussy about how and where to put wine for ease of finding; as if that ever happens.

I had found some free time and was wondering what to do with it, when I forced myself to clear the floor path in the basement, where I tend to place wine for later storage. After moving ninety-nine bottles up, to make it easier to sort; right, I had to cut up some cheese and crackers and pour a glass of wine and decide what am I going to do. Oh the problems we mere mortals have to face and I am so glad that I am not planning on moving. So after lugging the wine around, eating the cheese and crackers, and then drinking the glass of wine, I decided that I needed to write about the experience, before I got back to actually doing what I had decided to do. I then thought how do these people claim, that they cannot amass wine, when to me, they just grow exponentially in the middle of the night. They reproduce not only in red and white, but they also mutate into sparkling and dessert wines as well. Well I must now say goodbye to Oscar and say hello to Felix. I will leave you the greatest line from that play “I can’t take it anymore, Felix, I’m cracking up. Everything you do irritates me. And when you’re not here, the things I know you’re gonna do when you come in irritate me. You leave me little notes on my pillow. Told you 158 times I can’t stand little notes on my pillow. “We’re all out of cornflakes. F.U.” Took me three hours to figure out F.U. was Felix Ungar!”