Those are really cool.

That being said, this year's crowd was remarkably accommodating and willing to listen. Today was hectic as expected, but I don't recall a single customer who just made me want to tear my hair out, as would usually be the case [several cases] the day before Thanksgiving.

YES, thank you. I've spent the last week saying this on endless repeat. The real maelstrom though, is the flood of people who come to the wine shop exactly once a year at just this time and need recommendations, but don't trust any recommendations I give because they don't know anything about wine.

Informed more of my life than SNL or The Simpsons, and that's saying something.

I can definitely see your point, but I really think Toshiro Mifune might want to have a word on any number of occasions.

Hard to disagree.

Submissions for the HOA phone directory cover were open at the time, but my carefully crafted drawing of protestors in Klan attire wasn't accepted for some reason.

Concerns were voiced about the traffic [on the main street about three blocks from the highway, so not pertinent to 99% of residents] and the "element" it might introduce.

Back in the early 90s there was a proposal for a group home for lower-income elderly adults in the neighborhood I lived in, and people freaked the f*ck out. This was a solid middle-class single-family home Levitt development in Northern VA.

Any idea where DC would have landed in there?

WTF? Are you doing glassblowing now?

And still fully soaked at 7:30 in the evening. Can't complain about being in retail now.

The real glamour of winemaking is standing there with a hose and a brush in your hands, no?

Make me one like the sleestak shirt and I'll wear it.

I merely made an observation, which in hindsight was uncharitable.

I've been judging you since you wrote that scurrilous graffiti on the mailbox when you were 9. Still not counting out the prospect of reconciliation though. Someday in the future. Maybe.

Gahhh, I've clearly been conflating it with another time all these years.

Don't remember either of those, but I do remember the night you were ostensibly at [some innocuous friend]'s house, and wound up broken down on the beltway coming back from Merriweather Post. Don't remember who the band was, though.