July 21, 2013....

It has been an "interesting" day, to say the least.  It all started last night.  I thought I would have a glass of wine, and invited my daughter over to join me.  Alas, she was already lounging in her nightwear, and did not want get dressed again to leave the house and drive an entire mile to my house.  Oh well--her loss.  I poured myself a glass anyway from a brand-new bottle of White Zinfandel, one of my favorite varieties.

I enjoyed a single glass, and put the wine away, using a rubber-gasketed stopper.  It was a designed-for-wine stopper.  I have a vacuum sealer stopper gizmo, but only one stopper for that could be found, and it was already in use on another bottle.  So, I used the more decorative wine stopper.  Now mind you, on a previous occasion, my daughter had inspected these stoppers with me, and we both (well..she) concluded that, having a rubber gasket, they should seal just fine.

I wasn't positive about the seal, so I checked, double-checked and triple-checked it:  turned the bottle over; shook the bottle; laid the bottle on its side.  All was secure; no leaks.  The decorative stopper made the bottle too tall for the tallest shelf in the fridge, so I laid it on its side in the usual space I reserve for wine bottles.  Later in the evening, all was well, and I confidently went to bed.

Upon getting up this morning, and fetching the creamer for my weekend mocha, nothing was amiss, and I gave it no further thought.  All that was about to change, however, at lunchtime.

As I opened the fridge to fetch my sandwich makings, something did not smell quite right.  Upon investigation, I saw that the stupid stopper had popped off the bottle, and I had wine everywhere on the shelves and dripping into the assorted drawers below.  What a mess; what a waste of perfectly good wine!  I am ruined!  My reputation is shot!  A Frenchman, it is said, never spills a drop of wine!  Now, I've lost over half a bottle!

Out came the contents of all those shelves and drawers, and into the sink they went!  Out came the sponge--no, wait--too big a job for the sponge; fetch half a roll of paper towels!  An hour later, the mess is cleaned, the drawers returned, and my sandwich bread gone stale from sitting out all this time.  Sigh.

I am now looking for where to place the blame.  Is this my fault?  The stopper's faulty-fault?  Or is it my daughter's fault for assuring me that this stopper should have worked??  Cleaning out the fridge was on my list of tasks for the day, anyway.  Nonetheless, I had not planned on using wine as a cleaning agent!