the friend who took one tasting class and now sends back a $9 pinot

There is a man named Marcus, and he took one (1) wine tasting class at a strip-mall community center on a Tuesday, and he has never recovered. None of us have. On March 4th he was a guy who drank whatever was open. By March 5th he was swirling. The swirling has not stopped. It's July.

Let me set the scene, because the scene is important. We are at Applebee's. Not a metaphor for Applebee's. Not an Applebee's-adjacent gastropub. The actual Applebee's, the one with the Dollarita chalkboard and a TV playing a game nobody's watching. And Marcus — our Marcus — has ordered a glass of the house pinot noir. Nine dollars. NINE. Less than the boneless wings we are all currently eating with our hands.

the swirl heard round the booth

He picks it up. He does not drink it. God, no. First he holds it to the light like he's checking it for counterfeit bills. Then the swirl — a full 360, aggressive, the pinot climbing the sides of the glass like it's trying to escape. Then the sniff. A deep, closed-eyes, spiritual sniff, the kind of sniff you'd give a newborn. And then, to the entire table, unprompted, to people who did not ask:

"Mmm. Notes of wet slate. Leather. And... ambition."

Ambition, Marcus. You detected AMBITION. In a nine-dollar pour that has been sitting open behind the bar since brunch. I have known you eleven years. In March you could not tell the difference between merlot and a Capri Sun and I have the receipts — you called a rosé "the pink one" at my birthday and we all clapped for you like you'd solved a math problem.

The group chat, which I'll note is a sacred space we normally reserve for our real problems (this is what /for/group-chats was BUILT for), lit up in real time. Dana texted "he's doing it again." Priya texted a single voice memo that was just her laughing into her steering wheel in the parking lot for forty seconds.

the send-back. the actual send-back.

Here is where I need you to sit down, because it escalates. Marcus took one sip, made a face like a sommelier tasting betrayal, and flagged down our server — her name was Kayla, she was nineteen, she had four other tables — and said, and I am quoting exactly:

"I'm so sorry to do this. It's just a bit closed right now. Could I try the other pinot?"

The other pinot. As if there is a cellar. As if behind the swinging kitchen doors there's a temperature-controlled vault and a man in white gloves named Reginald. Kayla, a hero, said "we only have the one," and Marcus nodded slowly, gravely, like she'd confirmed something he already suspected about the establishment, and said "that's alright. I'll let it open up." He then let it "open up" for the remainder of the meal, checking on it periodically like it was a soufflé, and drank exactly none of it, and it appeared on the check, and he Venmo-requested me $11.50 for "my portion of the wine situation" at 9:47pm.

The wine situation. He requested me money for wine HE sent back in his HEART.

Things Marcus has now described as "a bit closed":

• The aforementioned $9 pinot
• A boxed sangria at Priya's cookout
• A wine spritzer, which is definitionally as open as a beverage can get
• Grape juice. At brunch. He said the grape juice was "showing tight." It was Welch's. From a carton. With a straw.

nobody asked. the crime is that nobody asked.

Let's be clear about what the actual offense is here, because it is not that Marcus likes wine. Liking wine is fine. Learning about wine is genuinely lovely and I support a hobby. The crime is the UNSOLICITED. The crime is that we ordered wings to talk about Dana's breakup and instead we got a fourteen-minute TED talk on tannins from a man who, one class ago, thought "sommelier" was a French cheese.

The crime is that he now holds every glass by the stem "so my body heat doesn't ruin the profile" while standing in a backyard in 91-degree July heat, sweating through his shirt, protecting a boxed rosé from his own warmth. The crime is that he corrected the WORD "legs" at a barbecue — told my aunt her wine had "beautiful legs" and then, when she said thank you, clarified for three minutes what legs mean, to a woman who has been drinking wine since before Marcus was a concept.

Marcus. Buddy. Light of my life. We would help you move at 6am. We have helped you move at 6am, twice, and one of those was a fourth-floor walkup and you owned a piano you cannot play. We love you with our whole chests. But if you swirl a nine-dollar house pinot and announce "ambition" ONE more time, we are staging something. It won't be an intervention. It'll be funnier and meaner than that.

The good news is I don't have to plan the whole thing. I just have to name the crime, put it on a card, and let it arrive anonymously so he spends a week eyeing everyone at the table like a detective. He'll swirl the suspicion. He'll sniff it. He'll say the group chat is "a bit closed right now."

Somebody get a witness. Then make the card at /create — describe your local wet-slate-and-ambition merchant, and let it land exactly as closed as it needs to be.