Bottle of White, Bottle of Red. If I Don't Get My Security Deposit Back I'm Dead

Sometimes I feel like I have a guardian angel watching over me. Someone making sure I have what I need right when I need it the most.

And this guardian angel comes to me in different forms. Once it came to me in the form of a relative who sent me a $100 check for my high school graduation six months after I graduated…and it arrived on the very day I went to my parents to ask them to borrow $100 to go to a concert(I was 18 at the time and can only assume my meager paycheck at Contempo Casuals). Another time I was driving home late at night from an ex boyfriend’s home on an empty highway and for some reason randomly moved into the fast lane of the highway (I had been traveling for some time in the middle lane). A few moments after I drifted into that lane, I saw a dead deer sprawled across the middle and right lane that I would have surely hit had I not unexpectedly and for no feasible reason switched lanes. And these weird little coincidences have happened my whole life.

The most recent one happened a few weeks ago at work. A coworker who I hardly ever see sat next to me at a meeting and told me a story about how the night before he had been enjoying a glass of red wine in his living room and when he set it down, his 2 year old son immediately knocked it over spilling it all over their white carpet. Acting quickly, his wife remembered hearing that if you poured white wine on a red wine stain, it lifts right out. So she grabbed a ½ bottle of Pinot Grigio from the fridge and dumped it all over the red wine spatters. Within five minutes where there had looked like a blood bath occurred, was just a wet spot that dried to leave NO STAIN.

This is red wine on white carpet people, every hostess’s biggest nightmare! And NO STAIN.

So fast forward to that weekend. We are decorating the living room for the holidays, and as I reach behind an end table to plug in the garland I knock over my FULL glass of Beaujolais nouveau ALL OVER the white carpet in our living room. And truth be told all over the white wall too. It looked like a massacre and it was! The worst massacre of all. The massacre that results in wasted wine.

In an instant I recalled my coworker’s story and ran into the kitchen. There on the first shelf of the fridge was a somewhat forgotten half bottle of pinot grigio. I grabbed it and sprinted back into the living room. As Adam pondered aloud “UM WTF ARE YOU DOING” I sprinkled liberally that white wine all over the red wine spatters and once it was soaked I dabbed with a towel. And dabbed and dabbed some more. Within ten minutes, I had a cramp in my wrist, our apartment smelled like a booze lodge (not that it doesn’t always kind of smell like that especially over the holidays) but the red wine stains? DISAPPEARED!!

It was a Christmas Miracle. The kind that will be spoken of for years to come. I would not be surprised if whoever wrote “The Red Shoes” penned this into another Christmas classic, The Red Wine Stain.

Of course it is entirely possible that this episode was less the work of a guardian angel and more the inevitability of me spilling an entire wine glass on the white carpet, regardless of what story I may have heard a few days before. But it is the holiday season and I am feeling sentimental!

So the next time you are at a soiree and make the mistake of sloshing your red wine onto the carpet. Grab the glass of the nearest guest driniking white wine and pour it on the stain. Then hand it to the hostess and say "You're welcome".

She will thank you, I assure you.