What is wine?

Wine is the red thunder. Wine is the fermented soap that cleans the soul. Wine is the whiskey. Wine is the greatness of the grapes. Wine is the sweet, sour coal that fuels the fire of your mind. Wine is the good dream come to life. Wine is the nightmare put to sleep. Wine is the blood of a teenager named God. Wine is the candy that can’t be put into a Halloween bag. Wine is the toothbrush of the soul’s mangled teeth. Wine is the straw that stirs the wine. Wine is the medicine that cures the bug bites. Wine is the seatbelt. Wine is the driver. Wine is the car. Wine is the speed limit. Wine is the car that is breaking the speed limit. Wine is the cop that pulls the car breaking the speed limit over. Wine is the bribe that gets the cop to let you off with a warning. Wine is the thing you get when you arrive, and wine is the thing you get when you leave. Wine is the soul, and wine is the car.

Wine is good, and it doesn’t taste half bad either.

Make sense?

Good.

Anyway, it sounds like you’re obsessed with wine! And who could blame you? Every 8-year-old’s favorite athlete, The Greatest Male Sledder In The World, was recently in a commercial for basketball and drank wine throughout it, and now there’s a nation of children just like you who desperately want to drink it.

It sounds like you’re obsessed with wine! And who could blame you? Every 8-year-old’s favorite athlete, The Greatest Male Sledder In The World, was recently in a commercial for basketball and drank wine throughout it, and now there’s a nation of children just like you who desperately want to drink it.

“Hello, and you are 8 years old!” exclaim your parents, who have invited one friend over for lunch. “Is there anything we can assist you with today?”

“Do not do sign language at us,” say your parents and their one friend.

“Absolutely not!” exclaim your parents and their one friend. “It is illegal for anyone under 16 to have wine. That’s just the law, as written by the presidents in their historic 1879 tirade, The Brochure Of Laws And Flavors Concerning The Grand Island Of America.”

“Oh, is that true?” exclaim your parents and their one friend. “That’s interesting. Well, we guess that if you just smelled the wine, it couldn’t hurt. But to be safe, don’t tell a cop or a member of the secret police. Thanks!”

Your parents and their one friend present so much wine for you to smell.

“Where did you learn that type of language, and is that true?” exclaim your parents and their one friend. “That’s interesting. Well, we guess that if you just smelled the wine, it couldn’t hurt. But to be safe, don’t tell a cop or a member of the secret police. Thanks!”

Your parents and their one friend present so much wine for you to smell.

You smell so much wine.

“Well, what do you think of the smell of wine?” they ask. “It smells scalding hot because we were drinking scalding hot wine. Sometimes you just do things like that.”

It’s the best thing you’ve ever smelled in your life. It’s easy to see why your favorite athlete shoots it at his body, and it’s also easy to see why the presidents don’t want people under 16 to drink it, because even with just one huge whiff, you begin to think about a man shooting a different man who’s swimming in a lake. But that last thing doesn’t matter as much as the first.

Yeah. You definitely need to drink wine.

“Sorry, kid, no can do. It’s just so illegal. We probably shouldn’t have even let you smell wine in the first place. Your eyes are in the back of your head and everything. It’s really gross and weird. Why don’t you go outside for a while? We’re just going to do boring adult stuff like stare at each other until nighttime. You probably aren’t interested in anything like that.”

“Go outside.”

You’re outside now, and you’re 8 years old still. Normally, you’d just eat some dirt or drink some river water, but not today.

Wine is all your 8-year-old mind can think about. Even just one whiff has got you completely obsessed, and you can’t even take a second to think about your favorite thing, a home run. It’s all wine all the time in that 8-year-old head, and you just have to acquire some to drink.

But...you heard what your five parents and their one friend said. It’s completely illegal for someone your age to acquire wine. You could get arrested by the cops or the secret police, something that would look terrible on a job application.

So you have a choice to make: Do you, the 8-year-old, accept and acknowledge the inherent risk associated with attempting to acquire wine and go for it, or do you not do that and go drink some river water instead?

Okay! So you are willing to risk it all for wine. Cool.

Of course, you can’t just go into a wine store and buy wine. You’ll get arrested right away. The leader of the wine store will say something like, “Here is your wine. Also, you are 8 years old, so give me that wine back. Goodnight.” That won’t do.

So, how do you want to go about acquiring wine? Again, it should be done in such a way that avoids arrest.

A fake ID! Certainly the coolest way to try to acquire wine as a minor.

Here’s the home of the guy who makes the fake IDs in your town.

You open the door, and this is the first thing you see.

“Hello! Do not come any further, and also say ‘cheese’ right now.”

“Do not do sign language at me.”

“Here you go,” says the man behind the curtain.

He hands you this, which clearly won’t do.

“That’s the ID I give to everyone. Most of the time, it works, and that’s why my house is so big and why I have this curtain. Sorry it didn’t work out, and please leave!”

Great. Now what?

Good idea! If someone of legal drinking age acquires wine for you, it slightly diminishes the chance that you’ll get arrested.

Now, you need someone who doesn’t care that they’re providing wine to a minor. It isn’t a crime, but it can still get them sent to jail. For example, your five parents and their one friend are in jail now, and all they did was let you smell wine. They’ll be there for quite some time unless they escape.

So, you’ll need to find someone who doesn’t care about all of that. In other words, you’ll need a badass—someone your parents and their one friend have said “Don’t go near that kid; he’s a real cool badass” about.

Yep.

There’s only one person in town who fits that description.

“Do not do sign language at me,” yells Durango from inside his house.

Durango.

It’s gotta be Durango.

It’s Durango.

Introducing...Durango.

Here are the three facts about Durango: He only has a middle name, he doesn’t go to school because he thinks “books are only for people who know how to read,” and he was thrown out of the U.S. Army at age 15 for trying to kick someone.

Durango is the type of human being who makes God say things like, “Ah, shit,” because of how cool he is. If anyone is going to get you wine, it’s him.

“The fuck do you want, mudass?” says Durango, whose voice sounds like that of a pretty good amateur bodybuilder. He lights a cigarette he found on the ground.

“Oh, is the little baby crying?” Durango asks, revealing one of his arms in the process.

“Stop crying! You don’t know what real pain is, kid. No one in your generation does. You’re all a bunch of goddamn piles of soft, rancid lunch meat, if you ask me. The last time I cried I was 13 years old, stationed in Antarctica. My platoon and I had been fighting for two weeks straight down in the trenches with no relief from enemy bullets or bombs. We were cold, and the coats the army had given us were just horseshit. They were tank tops, basically, without the middle part. Bunch of us got frostbite, including yours truly—me, Durango.

“It was brutal, kid. Just fuckin’ brutal. I thought I was going to die about a dozen times. Hell, maybe even two dozen times. But that’s not the reason I cried. I lost my best friend, but that wasn’t the reason I cried either. Both my parents died too, but that also was not the reason for my tears. No, I cried when I accidentally shot a penguin and it died. Shot it to fuckin’ hell, kid. Put it smack-dab right in Satan’s garage on the penguin shelf. And I just lost it. I’m not sure what it was that made me cry, exactly. I don’t even like penguins that much. Hell, I was probably trying to shoot the penguin on purpose just because I was bored and wanted to see what would happen. But it made me cry. What you’re crying about now? It doesn’t even come close to the time I cried in the army due to shooting a penguin. Nowhere near.”

“So, let’s try that again, and this time without the wet slop coming out of your head. The fuck do you want, mudass?”

“Wine? Ha! You can’t handle wine. Wine is the toothbrush of the soul’s mangled teeth, motherfucker, and your teeth are scrubbed with the palm of the town dentist. When I was in the army, I saw a whale get eaten by a much smaller whale, and I also shot a penguin. You? The worst thing that’s ever happened to you was having your five parents and their one friend get sent to jail, maybe for a very long time.”

Hmm. Looks like you’re going to have to do something badass to prove to Durango that you’re worthy of wine. What are you going to do?

“Holy shit, 8-year-old,” growls Durango. “I had no idea you were so hardcore. I like your style. It’s the style of a chef who screams, or someone who fights an animal in a boxing ring. Sure, I’ll buy you illegal wine. Let’s go.”

You write your message on the cardboard box and hop in with Durango, and after a few minutes, a 32-year-old mailman picks you up with a great deal of pride.

“There are no air holes in this box!” says the 32-year-old mailman with great pride.

Oh Christ, did you remember to poke holes in your cardboard box?

You arrive at what can only be described as a Wine Store in no time.

But Durango pays the Wine Store no mind. He continues on, going faster and faster, heading deeper and deeper into the woods. At no point does he say, “I accidentally missed the Wine Store and am currently in the process of turning around.”

This can’t be good.

Suddenly, Durango stops. He puts on a black-and-white sweatshirt similar to the one that an undercover cop would wear, and picks a cigarette up off the ground and puts it in his mouth.

“Get out,” says Durango with the sudden air of someone who has been an undercover cop this whole time.

“Wrong.”

“Hands behind your back, milkfuck.” says Durango. “And guess what? I’ve been an undercover cop this whole time. Yeah, that’s right. This year, my assignment for the army was to become a cop and arrest underage drinkers. I never got kicked out of the army—in fact, they gave me this promotion. That was just my cover.”

“Hell yeah, you did. But now you’re going to jail. You’re gonna get eaten alive in there, maybe for real, and not just as a metaphor.”

“...”

“Shit,” says Durango. “You’re right. Wanting wine as a minor isn’t a crime. You didn’t drink it or smell it or acquire it or anything. Fuck. Sorry, kid. You’re free to go. My boss, the president, is going to be so disappointed in me.”

Phew! That was close—but not so close that you want to give up the search for wine. After all, it smelled really good. Remember how good it smelled? Of course you do.

Do you have any other ideas for acquiring wine?

The outdoor woods. What a great place to look for wine! People are always leaving cool stuff out here. Remember all the cool stuff you’ve found in the woods over the years?

A baseball autographed by everyone who orchestrated the Watergate break-in...

Some sort of cool animal bone...

The Holy Spirit...

A dinosaur egg...

And who could forget the day you brought this thing home?

Yeah, you’ve found a bunch of neat things in the woods over the years. Makes sense that wine would be here too! Time to get searching—for wine.

Who cares is right. Where do you want to look for woods wine first?

“Dad, you came back!” says everyone in this RV.

Probably best to not explore this any further.

No wine here.

You go straight for what feels like hours, but is probably closer to just one hour, until you stumble upon something incredible: a lake! There has to be wine down at the lake. After all, lakes are where teenagers go to become romantic, and when there’s romance, there’s wine. Surely a bottle or two was left behind by a lovestruck teen fleeing from the police or secret police.

You walk down to the lake, and when you get there, this is what greets you.

“...”

Looks like they’re dead. Best to just move on.

Whoa. Awesome.

“Hello, little 8-year-old!” shouts this 42-year-old man. “What brings you to a lake?”

“Do not do sign language at me!” says the 42-year-old man.

“Wine? Oh, hell yeah! There just has to be. Teens are always being romantic around this lake—and a few adults trying to relive their teenage years, might I add! One time, I saw two adults kissing each other on the throat, and one time, I saw two adults looking into my eyes! It was a very average thing to watch. Anyway, let me get out of this goddamn lake and help you look.”

Awesome! It looks like wine is destined to be placed inside your stomach and lungs thanks to this guy!

Just a little bit closer.

Uh-oh.

“Ah, shit. Well, looks like I’m fuckin’ dead in a lake now! I was going to get married to a woman today and everything. Oh well.”

That guy dies, which can’t be good, considering how close you were to acquiring wine and whatnot.

You search everywhere, but there’s no wine to be found. Was the 42-year-old man lying? It would be a shame if he was. But he’s dead in a lake, so you can’t confront him about it.

You retrace your steps and walk toward the front of the lake, and when you finally get there, you see this guy again.

“I believe I have killed a 42-year-old man.”

Oh boy.

“That man was going to find you woods wine,” the guy continues. “I just know he was. He had that look in his eye, the one you get when you’re like, ‘Hell yeah, I’m going to buy a minor some wine.’ That can’t happen. I am someone who believes that an 8-year-old, which presumably you are, is not to have wine. It’s against the presidents and a law, for God’s sake.”

“I am a man who watches the lake. My father founded this lake, so I have taken it upon myself to make sure no crimes get committed down here. When a fisherman fishes out of season, I fire the shot that kills the fisherman. When a rowdy teen tries to graffiti the word ‘Bad Lake’ on the lake, I fire the shot that kills the teen. When someone dumps a body in the lake, I fire the shot that kills the body dumper. When an 8-year-old attempts to acquire wine from a 42-year-old, I fire the shot that kills that 42-year-old. Make sense?”

“Yes. Also, one time, I got bored and shot every bottle of wine in the woods to smithereens for being litter, so there’s no wine here anyway.”

Well, this guy is clearly some sort of narc, and it also seems like he is some kind of guy who could kill you. Looks like you’ll have to look elsewhere to acquire wine. How do you want to do that?

You begin digging with your 8-year-old hands, and wow, look at you go! You’ll be able to see if there is any wine buried underground in no time.

For an 8-year-old, this is pretty impressive digging work. Keep it up!

Oh. Oh no. Seems like you dug too deep and are now face-to-face with this.

“Hello, I’m 30 years old,” says a 30-year-old man. “My grandfather knew Benedict Arnold, and I’ve never left this hole in my entire life. It just isn’t possible! Oh, and if you’re wondering, there’s no wine down here.”

Looks like you have decided to try to pull off a Wine Store Heist, which, for your age, is very impressive. Most kids your age would just be content playing in the street or getting sick.

Anyone who has seen a heist movie, like 1947’s Heist Movie or 2009’s Heist Movie Spoof, knows that a heist cannot be successful without the help of a crack team of co-conspirators with special heist-related skills, like stealing. What you need to do now is assemble this team, and what better place to look than your neighborhood playground?

“Hello,” you hello. “Did you know that you’re going up the slide instead of down?”

“Yes, that is my special heist skill,” says the boy.

“Oh, cool. Say, would you like to help me commit a Wine Store Heist?”

“Sure.”

Nice! Things are off to a great start.

You walk over to the tube and tell the kid lodged inside about your heist plan, and he’s in. His special heist skill will be fitting into tight places, particularly tubes. He also says something along the lines of, “My dad does heists too!” and that’s just fantastic.

“Hello, kids who are trapped in this web! Would you like to be in a heist, for wine purposes?”

“We would,” they all shout. “But can’t you see that we’re trapped in this goddamn web?! Oh, why would someone do this to us? We’re just children! We need to go to school and learn about Louis Pasteur, for God’s sake!”

Oh well. Keep looking.

Like usual, the only person on the basketball court is an elderly man who does nothing but stand still and hold a basketball.

“Hello, senior man, would you like to be in a heist? I’m going to try to acquire wine, and I don’t care whether or not you think that’s illegal.”

“Sure!” he says. “I’ll be the guy who holds a basketball.”

Fantastic! This is really starting to come together.

You walk over to your park’s wheat field, and in the field is her. You have a crush on her, which means you’re an absolute mess whenever you’re in her presence. It feels really cool.

“Hello, I’m heist, and this time, it’s Wine Store, and wine...for me.” Oh boy, you really flubbed that. But luckily, she’s used to your blubbering nonsense by now, and she takes it in stride without once asking if you’re having a stroke or dying.

“I’d love to be in your wine heist! I could be the hacker! I actually hack into websites all the time. I once made WheatThins.com post a picture of a watermelon, and another time I made WheatThins.com post a picture of two lemons.”

Great! There’s just one more type of person for your team that you should have: someone who can fight the leader of the Wine Store just in case things get out of hand.

“I’ll be on your heist team,” says this girl before you can tell her what you’re doing or introducing yourself.

Great! Now you have a team. You’ve got the kid who can go up a slide instead of down, you’ve got the kid who can fit into tight places like a tube, you’ve got the old man who can hold a basketball, you’ve got the hacker who you’re in love with, and you’ve got someone violent.

The meeting where you iron out your plan is held under a blanket of darkness, as is heist tradition. You’ve spent all day coming up with a plan, and in all honesty, it’s a pretty damn good one. Would you like to hear yourself tell your team the plan?

You slam the blueprints for the Wine Store on the playground ground in front of your team and begin to talk and point your fingers wildly.

“So here’s how it’s gonna go. Old Basketball Man, you’ll develop a friendship with the leader of the Wine Store because you’re the same age, 54. As you guys talk about the Korean War or whatever, you’ll be creating a diversion. Once this diversion is set, Tube Kid will sneak in the back entrance through the vents, which are like tubes in many ways, thus getting inside the store. When Tube Kid is inside, he’ll open the front door for me to walk through. I will then head to the wine aisle of the Wine Store and acquire a bottle. My Crush...I mean, my Hacker, will hack into the computer and disengage the front door’s Minor Alarm. Violent Girl, you will be called in if things start to get dicey, in order to beat up the leader of the Wine Store. Slide Kid, you, of course, will drive the getaway car. Sound like a plan?”

Everyone shakes their heads no, meaning yes.

“Great. We’ll all meet across the street from the Wine Store in the abandoned SAT Practice Test factory at 1 p.m. sharp. See you there; I’m 8 years old.”

An apple! Nice.

Now it’s 1 p.m. sharp, and you and your heist crew are in the abandoned SAT Practice Test factory. You’re all slapping yourselves in the head and screaming and crying and punching yourselves in the thighs in order to get sufficiently hyped up.

Yep. It’s time to perform a Wine Store Heist.

Old Basketball Man walks inside with his basketball, and even from inside the abandoned SAT Practice Test factory you can hear him and the leader of the Wine Store go on and on about how they both know what the Korean War is. It’s almost boring enough to make you fall asleep, but you don’t, because you’re too obsessed with getting a taste of wine.

Christ, the Tube Kid is good at being inside a tube. He’s in the Wine Store in no time, and soon the front door flies open.

Once you tell your crush to hack into the computer and disengage the Minor Alarm, you’ll be all set to go inside.

“Hat!” is all you can blurt out, but she is so used to the constant stream of hot slop that comes out of your mouth that she knows you mean “hack.” She quickly disengages the Minor Alarm utilizing hacking, and you go inside.

Wow, and good God also. Would you look at all this...wine?

Uh-oh.

“Hey, you!” says the leader of the Wine Store, as the distraction from the Old Basketball Man has apparently worn off. “Oh, you’re just so young! Maybe even 8 years old, like my two daughters used to be! You can’t have wine! Come on! Do not do that, and put the bottle down at once!”

“Do not do sign language at me.”

The leader of the Wine Store is in hot pursuit as you, Old Basketball Man, and Tube Kid sprint out of the Wine Store. You clutch the bottle of sweet goddamn wine to your chest as if it is the Holy Grail or another artifact from history similar to the Holy Grail.

Now, where the hell is Slide Kid with the getaway car?

“I got distracted and went on a slide,” says Slide Kid, hundreds of miles away.

Fuck.

The leader of the Wine Store has caught up to you three.

“All right, now that’s enough. Just hand over the bottle of sweet, delicious wine, and I’ll forget this ever happened. I’m a nice man and a strong man, so I’m willing to forgive you. Even you, Old Basketball Man, who I thought I’d developed a real connection with. Oh well, that’s just life sometimes. Anyway, give me the wine back, 8-year-old, and I won’t have to call the police or the secret police.”

No. You’ve come too far. You’re not going out like this.

You have a secret weapon.

You summon Violent Girl, and the very sight of her causes the leader of the Wine Store (and his beautiful family) to flee the way anyone would in that situation. You and your crew are able to escape, except for Old Basketball Man, who gets shot at some point.

You, Tube Kid, and Violent Girl arrive at the abandoned SAT Practice Test factory with the wine completely intact. When you show your Crush the bottle of wine, she kisses you on the cheek. You throw up and scream and cry, and she smiles.

All is right in the world.

Epilogue

Your 8-year-old body has never tasted wine before, so you’re immediately drunk. It feels cool at first, but after about five minutes, the world becomes a blurry carnival of nightmares and disaster. You can’t handle it. There’s now no doubt in your mind that you should have waited until you were 16, and you completely regret stealing the wine. The fish that you dumped out of your fish tank has stopped flopping around on the ground, likely forever.

You stumble downstairs and then lurch into the kitchen, in the process knocking down all the trophies and medals your parents and their friend have been awarded over the years. You finally reach the kitchen, and when your parents and their friend all scream “Hello” at once, it feels like your head is being split open in two with one of the world’s sharper knives.

“Look who’s here!” they say, ignoring you. “Your hero! Turns out he was in the same jail as all of us, and we teamed up to break free. Isn’t that something? And he’s doing that thing from the commercial.”

This would have been the most incredible moment of your life, but you are in absolutely no condition for this.

Ah, making your own wine. A practice that has been practiced for dozens of years by everyone from George Washington to the big man himself. Not only will you be avoiding getting arrested at a Wine Store for acquiring wine from a Wine Store, but you will feel a sense of accomplishment once you finish. “I feel so good in my lungs and my head because I made wine,” is something you might end up saying.

But you have to be careful. The only ingredient needed to make wine is grapes, and if anyone catches on to what you’re doing, it’s possible you could get arrested for possessing wine paraphernalia while underage. It’s possible to pull this off, but you have to play it cool.

So onward and upward and into the sky! Of course, when it’s time to buy things regarding food and drink, there’s really no grocery store worth going to other than SUPERMARKET.

“Hello, 8-year-old!” says a man inside SUPERMARKET named Cuss Word Cuss Word. “What would you like today from SUPERMARKET? A roll? An egg? A bag of hot soup?”

“Do not do sign language at me,” says Cuss Word Cuss Word.

“I don’t know what that is.”

Honestly, it’s good that he said that. Milk is not a wine ingredient, and if Cuss Word Cuss Word had given you milk, you would have had milk, not wine.

“This kid wants age-appropriate grapes,” says Cuss Word Cuss Word to someone’s future wife.

Yes! Looks like you’ve fooled this food-shilling rube. You’ll be making wine in no time.

“I think the 8-year-old is lying,” says someone’s future wife. “See the way he acts? He is clearly acting as if he is on pace to commit a crime, specifically one involving wine. Remember the way The SUPERMARKET Bandit used to act before committing one of their classic bandit-based crimes, like stealing? It was very similar to the way this 8-year-old is acting.”

Uh-oh.

“Small thing,” Cuss Word Cuss Word says to you. “A woman has accused you of being a liar, and now I need to confront you. If you are lying, and I give you materials that you use to make wine, and you go on to make wine, and the news of your youthful winemaking reaches my boss, I will be fired. Don’t you know how bad that would be for me? If I got fired, that means I would have to become a scientist. I don’t want to do that! My father was a scientist, and his father was a scientist, and if that guy had a father, he would have been a scientist too. I don’t want to be a scientist! I hate microscopes, and I hate being safe in a laboratory, and I hate protective goggles. So tell me that you are telling the truth right now. Tell me you are a child of truth and not a child of deceit and lies. Immediately, and at once.”

“Okay, here! I think they’re free, so you can just take them.”

Yes! You got the grapes for wine.

You leave SUPERMARKET with the grapes, and you’re closer than ever before to making your own wine. All you have to do is microwave the grapes for two hours and then you’ll finally have wine to drink!

Oh no! While you were lost in thought, this man came up and stole your grapes.

“I’m just doing my job,” says the man.

Ugh. Normally, you’d just go inside and buy more grapes, but that was a whole to-do with Cuss Word Cuss Word, and certainly not worth repeating. Why don’t you try to acquire wine a different way?

“Fuck!”

Wow.

Wine is the greatness of the grapes.

Wine is the seatbelt.