Transient Transplant

I recently was partaking in my favorite pastime as of late, unwinding with a glass of wine after work and watching some tv, when I decided there was no time like the present to crack open that good bottle of red wine that I had gotten at the wineries in Woodinville about a month ago.

I usually stick to white wine, not necessarily because I prefer it, but primarily because I don’t run the risk of spilling it and making a mess.

I poured a glass of it, a red wine called “The Devil You Know,” admiring the name.  This particular wine was from a place called Gorman Winery, and they have the name game down.  Plus the wines are actually delicious.

But who doesn’t want to drink a wine called The Devil You Know.  Or The Devil You Don’t.  Or The Evil Twin.  Or The Bully.

They are all delicious, and the names definitely don’t hurt.

So there I was with a glass of the devil I knew, minding my own business, when I started to get sleepy so stood up to go wash my face when it happened.

I knocked the entire glass of wine from my coffee table over onto my couch.

I stood in disbelief for a minute, wondering if this was all a bad dream before running to get a roll of paper towels and soaking up the mess.

It looked like a crime scene.

“This is why I can’t have nice things!” I thought to myself as I sopped up the red stain from my IKEA couch.

In reality, it was a wonder it has survived this long in my possession without an incident like the red wine massacre of 2018.

I bought that couch for my first apartment out here, and it’s been with me for 3+ years, moving with me in each apartment being relatively unscathed.  It also functions as the guest bed on numerous occasions when I have visitors.

I was now grateful that I didn’t buy the khaki one that I wanted that was on sale as it would not have survived this level of catastrophe.

I looked down at the dark gray fabric, dabbing the wine to try to get every last drop soaked up, while googling “how to get red wine stains out of upholstery.”

It turns out, that is quite the rabbit hole to go down.  Everyone has a different theory for the best concoctions that work miracles, from salt to baking soda to mixtures of about 7 ingredients.

I knew I didn’t have the bandwidth for more than a few ingredients, plus it was late and I had to work with what I already had in my house–which wasn’t going to be much.

I settled on a specific dish soap/warm water solution that I was supposed to dab in and then completely soak out of the cushion until I could no longer see red.  And then, once I thought it was completely clean, it instructed me to continue for two more minutes.

Long story short, this devil of a glass of red wine took me a solid hour and 75% of my clean towels to clean out my couch (I was very close to laundry day, so that isn’t saying too much), which is more work that I’m typically willing to do on a weeknight.

I sat down, exhausted, examining the lines of the stain where I knew I had just put water and wondering if I was seeing things or if it would be noticeable to the naked eye.

After all, when I move from Seattle some day, I was hoping to sell this couch on Craigslist to lighten my load a bit, but maybe now I had just devalued it significantly.

I sat down on the clean end of the sofa and cursed under my breath because this wine had actually embodied the name The Devil You Know.

The devil I know would certainly rear its ugly head in the form of me spilling and ruining furniture like a child.

I’ve given up on owning white coats because they always have some sort of stain on them in about 12 hours from me sitting in something, or reaching for something.  So why would my couch be spared my klutz nature?

I went to bed later, exhausted, but having worked up a sweat, thinking I’d taken care of the wine stain, but also knowing that I would know exactly where it happened, and that would haunt me forever.