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[Steven Champeon <schampeo AT hesketh.com>]

on Tue, Jul 01, 2003 at 02:04:35PM -0400, childers.paula AT epamail.epa.gov 
wrote:
> 
> > But, um, stay away from Boone's Farm. Ick.
> 
> aw Steve, you're sounding like an elitist!  Boone's Farm is what the
> redneck ladies of the South drink, instead of the moonshine their old
> man is makin out back. It's a sign of true love and respect when a man
> spends real money on his woman's Saturday night beverage!

I'm sorry, Paula - I thought you were referring to Boone's Farm, but
then I read "it's a sign of true love and respect", and then I knew
otherwise ;)

Back in high school, I worked in a convenience store tax shelter for a
gas station/fuel company. My boss was a guy named John Bristow, an
ex-Army cook. Nice guy. Drank 12-packs of Blatz and smoked Cambridge
reds in the soft pack.

We were cleaning out inventory one week, and we had (why, I don't know)
some fifty bottles of Wild Irish Rose and Mad Dog 20/20 on the shelf,
and it was getting embarrassing how much dust and so forth gathered on
them.

So one day, a guy drives up in a nice gold Cadillac, and starts fueling.
He's the spitting image of Clarence Clemons, and his blonde wife is
sitting in the passenger's seat, smoking some sort of long cigarette
from a holder with all the windows rolled up. John looks at me, and says
"hey, let's try to unload this cheap wine on this guy".

He comes in, sweatband and pink jogging suit and gold rings that would
make any man proud, and John corrals him over to the shelf, asking him
if he likes a little wine now and then. The guy looks at John funny, and
says, "sure, but I don't have much money today and I have to fill my
tank". John says "I'll let you have this stuff at 10 cents the bottle".

The guy allows that that's a pretty good deal, even for something as
nasty as MD20/20, and goes out to discuss it with the wife.

She grimaces, he waves his hands, she shakes her head, he nods
vigorously, she asks how many bottles, the guy tells her, her eyes get
real wide, she asks how much, he tells her, and she's slowly convinced.

So we hauled out some boxes and packed it all up, shining each bottle as
we put it in the boxes, mostly to remove the half inch thick layer of
dust and grime, but we made a big show out of it. 

The guy pays his five bucks and throws it all in the trunk, wife looking
at him with a priceless look of "oh, no, what have I /done/?" on her
face.

It was a moment of pure drama. But we got rid of the fortified wine,
and like John says, there's nothing like a happy customer. And besides,
we didn't have to dust it ever again.

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