Whine, whine, wine!
What is the purpose of bringing wine to dinner parties?
We invited our neighbours over for dinner the other day. They brought a bottle of wine, as we always do when visiting. When we proposed to open it, the Mr. said, “Oh no, don’t open it. Just bring it with you when we return the invitation.”
We all laughed. “There’s a cartoon in that,” I said. And here we are.
does a thing called Is There Something In This?, which I think is now incorporated into his main ‘stack, . He does Is There… with his buddy Scott Dooley, and the results of their collaborations pretty regularly appear in The New Yorker.So, is there something in the wine gifting ritual?
It’s such a ritual to bring a bottle of wine to dinner. In these parts, you often bring something to contribute to the meal too, salad or dessert. But wine is in a separate category, like “We’ll feed you, but your state of inebriation is your business (and expense).”
Generally, I am a beer drinker, but I like drinking wine. It packs more punch. So I like it when people bring wine to a dinner.
Dinner at the neighbour’s is great because we don’t have to worry about driving. I heard a radio program the other day that scared the wits out of me. Even a small amount of alcohol might put you over the limit. Short of getting your own breathalyzer machine, which one radio show guest actually did, you cannot tell, and the more inebriated you are, the more likely you are to think you are perfectly fine, sober.
After listening to that show, I made a vow to never have even one drink if I’m driving, but then I broke the rule two days later. Two drinks over four hours. “I’ll be fine,” I thought.
It’s ever curious that the car manufacturers don’t just install ignition control systems as a default in all cars. Blow to Go. It ain’t rocket science.
Anyway, the cartoons you see here are playing around with the idea of wine “not for drinking” or not exactly for drinking.
There’s something in it, gag-wise, I’m just not sure what it is exactly.
This one I tried to finish up a bit, inked, then colourized.
