Tex* has played a nasty trick on me; he put all of the booze in stoppered bottles and then abruptly left the apartment. Admittedly the wine might have been bottled prior to his departure for manly games night, however he did take the wine opener with him. Mostly because Tex is my wine opener.

Prior to living with Tex, I had a lovely wine bottle opener that was designed for lefties with pipe cleaner arms. Because it worked backwards in order to accommodate my backwards lefty brain, and thus confused anyone else who tried to use it, my bottle opener did not accompany me when I moved. Instead whenever I have wanted wine, I’ve turned to my muscly, cowboy boyfriend and said “Please open this for me”. This method has worked wonders for ages until tonight, when I decided to take all of the feminist chants of encouragement that “I am equally able in every way” and attempted to open my beverage by myself.

What followed was a knockdown drag-out battle that left me winded and still thirsty. Despite trying all of the positions in the Alcoholic Karma Sutra of Bottle Opening; the on the counter, two-handed pull, the one leg against the wall, three limbed extraction, the left handed half-nelson, the right handed half nelson, the two footed clothespin. The cork didn’t even have the decency to squeak when it failed to move an inch.

In the end I shoved the bottle, complete with the opener still stuck in the top in the fridge as homage to my spindly, weak arms. In the future, I’m going to check for an open bottle of hooch before Tex leaves to shoot bears with crossbows, or whatever it is that he does during manly game nights.

*Names have been changed to protect the identities of those who keep the booze flowing.