A Blog by Gail Cushman
As you know, my grandmother often said, “There’s a bus leaving tomorrow, I might as well be on it,” so I got on a bus this week. Accompanied by a dozen other “women of a certain age,” except for one, who was about age forty, meaning she was closer to being a teeny bopper than “of a certain age,” I went on a Wrinkly Bits wine-tasting gig. What an adventure!
We all looked like masked bandits as our skipper demanded that we follow every Covid rule and regulation to a tee, which is no less than I expected since her duty was to keep us safe and sober. The new and immaculate bus seemed harmless enough, at least no one leaped off the bus and ran screaming naked down the street. We had four stops to gather our team and drove all over God’s green acres to pick people up, but no one seemed to mind as we found plenty to chatter about, important stuff, like whether it was better to drink bottled water or fresh from the tap. Or how many fifty-pound bags of sugar did it take to brew the Pepsi that sat in the eighteen-wheeler that just passed us. Scott, our driver, gave us a visual tour of the bus: windows, doors, bathroom and how to get it out if the door happened to stick. With my luck, a tricky lock would keep me quarantined without even one taste of wine, so I didn’t try the facilities. He then gave detailed instructions of what to do in case of emergency, such as an accident or his getting knocked out and he gave those instructions twice, just to make sure we were all listening.
We arrived at our destination and found a lovely flight of wine, a half dozen types, white through red to tempt us, and I noticed that there wasn’t much left in any of the glasses at the end of our sampling, or was the correct word guzzling? We had pre-ordered sandwiches, which were tasty, and everyone received a Wrinkly Bits book, which gave me opportunity to tell some more stories. By the end of my inane conversation, everyone was laughing, but I am not sure if it was because of the wine or because I had dribbled something down my shirt. Whichever, everybody was quite jolly.
Back on the bus and five minutes later we arrived at destination number two in the midst of a near hurricane, but luckily our fearless leader secured tables and chairs inside, and thankfully, more wine. A lot of other people were in the tasting room, and I think they wondered about our merry band of wrinklies. You’ll be glad to know that we had a good time, laughed a lot, no one got arrested, arrived home safely, and the best part? No one got arrested.
My Grandma got aboard a lot of buses, now making me wonder about where she really went…to see her adult children, or to be a wrinkly giggler?
If you enjoy Wrinkly Bits, please share!
