WHERE ARE YOUR MANNERS?

I have noticed a disturbing trend over the past few years. Apparently, people seem to feel no shame whatsoever when they steal other people's booze at a BYOB party, which is what most parties tend to be these days. I started noticing this about 10 years ago when I attended the occasional house party thrown by various and sundry Shaw Festival folks, usually actors. I got so tired of opening a bottle of wine, having one glass and returning to find the bottle empty that I got into the habit of carrying the bottle with me and drinking directly from it. Ok, so it's possible that the odd individual may be too drunk to notice that the wine label is different from the one they brought, wine labels being what they are, but EVERY SINGLE BOTTLE disappeared at EVERY SINGLE PARTY!

This past weekend, I attended one of my favourite events: the roof-top party/watching of the annual Pride Parade in Toronto. I had a bottle of Pinot Grigio and came up with what I thought was a rather clever idea. I bought a bottle of soda water, mixed the wine and soda together and poured the mixture back into the two bottles. Voila! Two bottles of pre-mixed, spritzer 'light', one in the soda water bottle and one in the wine bottle. I took the soda water bottle with me to the roof and left the wine bottle in the fridge. After some parading, and sharing around a glass or 3 of my bottle, I decided I should go down and get the 'reserve' bottle from the fridge. Imagine my surprise (actually, I thought I was going crazy) to find it missing. Not wanting to think the worst of anyone at this function, I tore the fridge apart, assuming that it had simply been moved for some reason. But, alas, no. Upon returning to the roof, there was the empty bottle sitting, discarded, forlorn & ignored in the roasting sun.

WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU? Did you ask anyone, least of all me, if it would be all right to 'share' some of my spritzer? And it's not like you sneakily helped yourself to a sly glass-full, YOU DRANK THE WHOLE FUCKIN' BOTTLE!!!! Did you feel that your contribution of food entitled you to some free booze? Oh, wait, outside of a bag of sunchips, some rice crackers and mini-tub of humus, the rest of the food was brought by......
um.......oh yes....ME!!!!!!!! Mm-hm. That big bowl of blueberries you enjoyed. I brought that. The delicious Benedictine blue cheese? I brought that. The super-spicy Genoa salami. I brought that. Oh, and the bottle of wine you stole? I brought that too, BUT FOR MYSELF!!!

Please people, scrape together your spare change, go out into the streets and see if you can buy a clue!!! If you didn't bring it, and it's not on the buffet, IT'S NOT YOURS. And remember, karmic justice is swift and furious. Right now, someone is taking something from you that you don't want them to have, and I am standing on a roof top on Yonge street, pointing and laughing.