Goodies for Oldies

Most grownups reading this probably have wine glasses, yeah? Wine glasses are just part of the minimal adult kit you have to acquire to demonstrate you’ve basically got your act together.

But maybe something’s happened and you find yourself without. Maybe you’re single again. Maybe you’re accident prone. Maybe all yours got stomped in a series of Jewish weddings you hosted in your home. Time to stock up; grownups need wine glasses.

It’s true even if you don’t drink wine. Sooner or later some bougie acquaintance is going to show up at your place (you do have your own grownup place, right?) with a bottle to contribute to the dinner (you do have grownup dinner parties, right?) and you’re going to look like a schmuck if you serve it out in your vintage Great Muppet Caper tumblers.

Can I get real with you for a second? This is Meh staffer @matthew talking. I don’t use wine glasses. I don’t like the stems. I find them too delicate or something. I always prefer glassware with a low center of gravity. (Later for those tall pilsner glasses or cocktail glasses. I’ll take pretty much anything to drink in an Old Fashioned glass, thanks. Exception: Capri Sun, the serving of which in any vessel besides its traditional poche would be scandalously gauche.)

So when it’s wine time chez moi, I reach for a short tumbler, and I don’t mean Simone Biles. For no good reason, I call this unorthodox presentation “Italian style” as a half-sarcastic quasi-joke. Not that it’s funny. It’s just a stupid thing I say, as in: “I’ll take my wine Italian style, thanks.”

In my head, this quip somehow excuses or explains my odd preference. Maybe people are supposed to think I’m worldly when they hear it — that I’ve dined and drunk over authentic red-checkered tablecloths in Tuscany, or some shit.

Outside my head, everyone just thinks I drink wine wrong.

Don’t be like me. Be an adult. Obtain wine glasses, and use them. Else your peers will look on you with pity and scorn. Which, I can tell you, is gonna hurt. Because you can’t just brush off with a flippant “cash me ousside” anymore.

You’re a grownup.