If anyone orders Merlot...Wha? Huh?

This all started in May when Alan's parents went on the Sideways
wine tour near L.A. So Alan's dad comes home as the Sideways expert. This is not the type of movie he would usually enjoy. The last movie I saw him excited about was Saving Private Ryan. If not for the predominace of wine in the movie, I am quite sure he would not even give this movie a second haughty sniff. So even though we got our copy of the movie from Netflix a month before, Tom insisted that we couldn't watch it until he came over and watched it with us. Then the elaborate scheme started. He decided that while we watched the movie we would taste the same wine that they were tasting in the movie (he had bought a lot of the wines on his tour.) And then he declared that Alan had to cook a nice dinner to complement the wines. So Alan and I finally decided to do the dinner on Father's Day evening. On Thursday while on the phone with his dad I heard Alan say, "So, we can have dinner and then watch the movie." Pause "Oh, we are watching the movie first? OK." To which I whispered to him, "No, not ok. We have to watch the movie after dinner so the kids will be in bed." Alan tried to explain this to his dad but they decided that would interrupt the "natural progression" of wine, food, etc.

I was not happy about this turn of events because I knew it would mean certain disaster. Dinner time is not only starts one of the busiest times of the day, it is also fussy time for Shepard. I knew I would not be able to enjoy the movie if I had to worry about kid issues. Though I thought I was just being logical, Alan said I was not being open-minded. Since I got painted with the bad guy brush, I tried to suck it up and go with the flow.

Summary of the evening...They arrived at 5:00. We didn't get the movie started until about 6 due to kid issues. Alan's mom was supposed to take care of the kids while we watched the movie, but she is just not familiar with the evening routine. So, I still had to make Shepard's dinner, get Sage a snack, start the bath, get PJs out, and nurse Shepard. While we are watching the movie Shepard is fussing in the background and Sage was running around poking us with his light saber and yelling, "I am the evil Sith Lord!!" We had to keep shuffling Sage off to another room since the movie was rated R and they kept dropping the F-bomb and having sex. We had to pause the movie every 5 or 10 minutes to take care of kids or so Alan's dad could get the next wine ready.

Then Tom kept talking throughout the movie---"Oh, we were at that winery. We stood right there." "Do you taste the hints of asparagus in this wine?" "We ate there! We sat at that table. They didn't have tables along that wall." "We stayed in that hotel!" "This next line is funny. He is saying if anyone orders Merlot, he is leaving." "She is getting ready to give a great speech about wine." "This is the funniest part of the movie coming up." "Remember she told him the hotel was to the right and see how she is turning to the left."---It went on and on. Alan finally spoke up and said, "Ok, thanks for the commentary, John Madden." But his dad didn't get it. We finally ate dinner at 9 (even though Alan had assured me that we would eat by no later than 7:30) and Sage was not in bed until 10. Then we had to watch the rest of the movie. So we started the movie at 6 and didn't finish it until 11!! I had let go of my anger by then--drinking 5 different kinds of wine in one evening helps. :)

I could see it in Alan's face that he knew I had been right. Trying to watch the movie first was a big mess. Of course in all of his manliness he couldn't come out and admit it and just apologize. But I think he knows deep down that Mommy knows best.