Vol du Vin

I had this piece of carry-on luggage from my parents. It was sent with me last fall, stuffed full of frozen beef. Once before my parents had brought it to Portland on the airplane stuffed full of frozen beef. They returned to Minnesota with the same bag stuffed full of Oregon wine. Regardless of what my folks might think, Oregon wine is not just a little superior to Minnesota wines, it is a HUGE difference.

My parents are coming for another visit this summer and want to bring me some fresh beef. We are talkin' about corn fed black angus beef freshly butchered before the trip out. Needless to say, I want a piece of that action. To get it, I needed to ship their suitcase back to them. I figured I owed them a few bottles of wine for the favor.

Nobody had told me you couldn't mail wine via the United States Postal Service. What is this? Pakistan? Iran? This is obviously the work of the kinds of people who eat Freedom Fries. The French help us over-throw the empire on which the Sun never sets and we repay them by saying you can't ship wine. What a bunch of ungrateful bastards we are. The notion I could not mail wine hadn't crossed my mind.

Step back. Why would we not allow alcohol to be mailed? Ah. As one of those individuals who has chosen not to contribute to the ever increasing problem of over-population and movie theater noise pollution, I quite often DON'T think of the children. Obviously plenty of people do. I walked home from the post-office towing a rolling suitcase behind me because I hadn't realized I needed to lie to them about the contents of the bag. There are ways around this silly little restriction. I took the case back to the micro-winery where I had purchased the bottles in the first places. Yes, they could ship it. Yes, just in time since this is the last shipment of the summer due to weather concerns involving shipping. No, not liable for damage. Just fill this out. Thank you and, oh, we can't ship it in that. Only in one of our approved containers. My final destination in this quest of trying to ship mildly alcoholic beverages from one consenting adult to another was UPS. While I despise the carrier on many levels, at least they shipped my package. Of course there was an additional fee since I used a rectangular, box like piece of luggage instead of a box.

(If you are a parent, read the closing marked "A". If you are childless, skip ahead to closing remark "B". Thank you for your cooperation.)

A: Next time I'll have the winery ship the vino and mail the luggage back separately... in a box.

B: If a kid wants alcohol they are going to get it. Worst case scenario the kid can order up a complete home brewing kit that contains everything required to make alcohol. Since it contains no actual alcohol, mostly just garden variety grains and sugar, with a little yeast, it's as easy as mail ordering a home bread kit. And restricting me from easy access to alcohol just makes me irritable. I'm old enough to own guns.