When I had just graduated from university, my friends and I decided we needed to do something that summer to celebrate. As I think about it now, I remember I was in the process of moving back in with my parents in Cambridge with absolutely ZERO prospects for employment. I had even applied for an unpaid position in Toronto and had two interviews and I STILL didn’t get the job. I couldn’t get people to hire me to work for free, that’s how non-existent my job prospects were. So it was probably not the best financial decision I have ever made, BUT I was thinking “I have a university degree, so WHATEVER! YOLO right?”
As a side note, I would soon fully realize that my degree meant nothing to employers and I was indeed as clueless as I felt deep down inside.
We decided to do a getaway to Niagara and do a wine tour now that we were classy graduates. What could be more important than taking adorable pictures with captions like “wine not,” “rosé all day,” and “it’s wine o’clock!” Forget job searching and my growing expenses! I had priorities!
We splurged for a full day wine tour in Niagara-on –the-Lake. Niagara-on-the-Lake is what heaven looks like for anyone above the age of 65. They have a whole festival dedicated to peaches and a quaint main street that has a store that sells Christmas decorations all year round and a fancy candy shop, that calls itself a “shoppe” with that extra –pe, so you know it’s speaking to ye old people. I also need to make a shout out to the Niagara-on-the-Lake apothecary museum, which has an overly friendly and chatty part-time employee named Bernice (she also happens to be my mom).
We got paired up with our tour guide, Jeff. Jeff was a cheerful older man who seemed genuinely invested in our enjoyment during the tour. He curated the experience by asking us if we wanted a leisurely tour or if we were there to hit up as many wine stops as we could and get WASTED. We informed him in was somewhere in the middle, but honestly slightly skewed to the later.
He dropped us off on our first stop to do a tour that involved going through the vineyards, seeing the barrel rooms, and the entire wine making process. He told us that he was bringing his morning tour group back into town and would come back to get us and then would spend the rest of the day with us. We said bye and started on our wine education.
The day was sunny, there was wine, and we were all unemployed graduates. Life seemed good and we were soaking it up. I nodded enthusiastically at every detail of wine making tour like I was making it a career. I was already deeply regretting my graduate degree and trying to think of some sort of an out. However, my enthusiasm for opening a winery took a steep decline when I heard how many years it took to get a good yield, and you know, actually learn wine making skills. That’s going to be a no for me.
We finished our wine tour, wine samples, and even bought some pizza to enjoy on the patio before we started to realize it had been a long time since we had seen Jeff. Despite my millennial tendencies, I hadn’t looked at my phone in almost two hours and when I finally did I saw I had 10 missed calls from the wine company! Had Jeff been looking for us and unable to find us? Had we committed some wine tour faux pas?
I called them back immediately only to discover Jeff had had a heart attack in the car driving to get us! He had swerved off the road, smashed into a hydro pool and was airlifted to the nearest cardiac hospital! I was in total shock when I heard the news on the phone. He seemed like such a great person and seemed so healthy and alert when we were happily chatting earlier in the morning and now he was in a life-threatening situation. I couldn’t help and think about how traumatized I would have been if we had been in the car with him. I would have needed to call upon my rusty first aid skills, which basically consisted of me shouting at someone else to call 911 and find the defibrillator.
Finally, when I was able to start speaking to the person on the other line of the phone I realized there were some logistical things they needed to work out from their business perspective considering we were stranded in a vineyard pretty far from any real form of civilization.
The tour company informed me they didn’t have any drivers left so we would have to join their other driver, Doug’s car. As soon as the minivan door opened to reveal our new seat buddies or “team bride” as their bright pink sashes read, we immediately got dubbed “HONOURARY BRIDESMAIDS!” It was a bachelorette party, stag party, hen party, or whatever you want to call it and clearly these girls had gone to WAY more wineries than we had. There also weren’t enough seat belts so we had to sit on the laps of various bridesmaids throughout the car. Who were we to argue?
I figured if we were going to be spending the next couple of hours as “honourary bridesmaids” we might as well get to know the bride, so I asked the typical “when and where are you getting married,” questions. I also asked, “Where did you meet?” I expected to get a regular answer that they met at the bar or Tinder, but instead she responded, “OKAYYYYYYY this is going to sound bad, but he was my high school teacher!” How are you supposed to respond to that? “OMG CUTE! Who cares about school rules and power dynamics- you do you,” just doesn’t not seem like the right response?
She did eventually clarify that, he was her STUDENT teacher and that they didn’t start dating until the summer after she graduated. I seriously questioned the truth of the second part, but I mean I was just an honourary bridesmaid crashing her bachelorette party so who am I to judge the bride?
Since that experience, I have been on numerous wine tours (some as a real bridesmaid) and learned how to use all my senses to drink wine and pair wine with the appropriate cheese, but I have never had a wine tour as eventful as that. No other heart attacks, no other high school scandals, and no sitting on any strangers’ laps.I did immediately follow up with the tour company and found out that Jeff made a full recovery and was doing well. So there was a happy end to this story. A full recovery and an ability for me to say I’ve been a bridesmaid one more time to add to my track record. They also offered us a 50% discount for our next wine tour. We never did take them up on that offer, but maybe we will one day. #Winenot? after all 😉
lisa prose 