Elf..., er as a Vintner
Oh hey, you been waiting here long? Don't mind these bottles; they let me take a few with me 'cause the staff room's got a bunch in... well, let's just say you kids are supposed to be gone by now.
Whoa, you are a little one, aren't you? I think you'd make a great elf. Of course there's the problem of the cold, and Santa's probably a bit of a tough boss--I mean, face it; you think they get overtime those last few weeks?
Whaddya mean? Sure--a few drinks but... Vintner? What the hell is a... wine? No, you're too young--this is going home with me. Huh? Slow down, you're a little blurry.
Oh, right. I get it.
You'll go to some fancy academy in the wine growing part of California, where you'll do the crap jobs for those snotty people with their fancy name tags who get in your face just because you take the bottle from that extra table that nobody was sitting at anyway and besides, they just write it all off as... oh, right.
You mind if I smoke? I mean, technically school ended about two hours ago. You shouldn't even be here. Why are you here, anyway? Oh--that sucks. Well, maybe your plane being delayed until after supper wouldn't be a problem if you were riding on that reindeer sleigh your boss takes 'round the... oh, yeah.
Wine, right? Okay, so you go to some wine academy in... Oh, I did? Where did I leave off? Name tags? Nevermind.
Skip ahead to you figuring out you're just slave labor for some grape grower who got in a bind when immigration scared off half his work force. Of course, the wine school will call it a "work term" or something--but you'll get tired of it fast and make your escape to France.
There you'll hike the wine regions until you find a small vineyard in Bordeaux. The family, an older couple and their two adult daughters, quickly welcome you into the family. You work in exchange for free room and board, and the insights of a man with over four decades in the winemaking business. At night you sometimes accompany the daughters to the nearby village where you dance at the one nightclub in the region, and soon you're well known to everyone in the area.
You've taken french, right? Good. Anyway, your french improves rapidly, and hours after the village jeweler sneaks word to the vintner that you've just bought an engagement ring, your mentor takes you out to the vineyard for a chat. He explains that you are the son he never had and he's decided to take a well deserved retirement, and he wants you to manage his vineyard for his daughters.
The following spring you are married to the younger daughter, and the two of you move into the big house at the top of the estate, while your new sister-in-law finds herself sharing less opulent surroundings with her parents in the renovated but still humble guest house.
Marie, your wife, has never gotten along that well with her sister, and now she has beaten her senior sibling to the altar, the rivalry grows nastier. Soon Chantale, the older sister, resorts to bringing home a variety of the nastier village ne'er do wells and partying with them on the lawn out behind your house until all hours of the morning.
It gets worse when she settles on one of them for a husband. Chantale and her new spouse convince your father in law that her husband should share management duties with you out in the fields while your wives continue to manage the wholesale and retail distributing of your wine.
You gotta leave for that plane yet? Fine--but I'm going to just have a little glass of this--you okay with that? All this talk about wine is making me thirsty.
Your new brother in law is sneaky--you go out to one of the vineyards one morning only to discover he's sown pot plants between the rows of grapes. You have the laborers pull them up, and later he threatens to "take care of you". You aren't too worried, but still you begin keeping track of where he is when you head out to inspect the crops alone.
Then one day he rushes in and hurriedly blurts out his latest plan to get rich: ice wine. You're familiar with the very sweet product created by leaving grapes on the vine late in the season until they freeze. It's not a product the french like, as a rule, but your partner has made contact with some Germans who are eager to find more quality ice wine to market throughout Germany and North America.
Pierre, your brother in law has learned of a new "cheat" that allows winemakers to produce ice wine artificially--grapes are frozen in big coolers rather than on the vine, and extra sugar is added to give the wine its characteristic sweet taste.
If word of this scam gets out, it will ruin the reputation of the vineyard--a reputation it took your father in law a lifetime to build. You try to stop Pierre, but he has his first batch in the bottle before you can interfere. You swear to yourself that you'll end this abomination before it ruins the whole operation, and you drive out to the end of the estate to confront Pierre.
He listens to your tirade politely and then asks to borrow your cell phone. You hand it over and he immediately smashes it under his foot. That simple step prevents you calling for help when two German bikers step out of the grape vines and join him in physically venting his frustration on you--it won't be pretty.
If you survive, what say you come back here and tell me if the fetal position actually helps? Oh, my cab's here--good luck.
Say hi to Santa for me.
My Christmas? I'll be getting the yearly phone call from my kids at 11 a.m. and then my ex-wife will come on and accuse me of being drunk and then I'll go to the old codgers' home and listen to my mother tell me why I'm a disappointment for about two hours until we eat the pressed turkey sandwiches. With any luck I'll put a bullet in my head before New Years.
Thanks for asking, though.
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