I can't even make this $h!t up....

Often times, when listening to someone else tell a story, it's funnier to have been there.  I hope this is not one of those times for you.

LL and I had this bright idea to take Keith on a wine tour yesterday because, well, who doesn't like a wine tour?!  (With almost 200 wineries in VA, there is plenty of drunk fun to be had by all)  Until I start playing the lottery and hit my millions, we were working on a budget.  This meant hiring Nate* (*who's name has not been changed because I don't care much about his privacy)  He's a new entrepreneur in the wine tour business, was very engaging, had a sense of humor and had a background/connections in the area wine industry.  Meet us on the historic downtown mall, pile us all into an air-conditioned van, 3 wineries of our choosing and then give us complimentary food, beverages, a t-shirt and a gift bag for $30/person?  Score!

Here's how our afternoon ended up going:

LL, Keith, B and I were picked up at the mini-mall outside Red Robin by a timid, slightly embarrassed woman.  She informed us that she'd been coerced by her boyfriend into helping Nate out because he'd overbooked the tours for the day (Strike #1)  She then led us to our chariot...and by chariot I mean a '98 Ford Taurus with one hubcap, one non-working passenger door, peeling paint and a nasty chocolate-looking stain on the backseat (Strike #2....and maybe #3 too)  I'll stop you before you even ask: she had left a jacket of hers on the backseat and that became the barrier between our asses and the unknown brown substance.

On the ride to the first winery, our timid "tour guide" turn into a NASCAR driver while she shuffled through printed maps to our destinations. (Strike #4) She admitted that she had no idea where we were going, asked B to help her navigate and informed us that she doesn't even like wine. (Strike #5)  LL and I, packed like sardines in the backseat, were giggling like schoolgirls by this time.  Keith had the "oh shit" bar firmly in his grip and B couldn't even crack a smile.  Get these boys some wine!  We survived the first leg and arrived at winery #1.

I'm going to exclude descriptions of the wineries because that's really not the funny part of the story :)

The trip to the next winery was short and dangerous, just what we'd come to know and love, involving only one almost collision and only a few sharp turns with excessive speeds.  When we asked little miss NASCAR what was included in the complimentary (read: $30) lunch, she said, with a little chuckle, that Nate's planned lunch for us (four full grown adults) was Lunchables and applesauce.  Yes, that fake meat, sodium laden, processed kindergarten lunch food and a cup of mutilated apples.  (Strike #6-199)

Thank goodness winery #2 sold food.  No more descriptions, I digress....

En route to winery #3 there was a U-turn and only one near death experience when our NASCAR tour guide didn't see a line of stopped cars. (But thank goodness B and Keith did and spoke up!)  By this time, it was getting REAL hard to hold in the laughter between LL and I.  Our driver opened up and we found out she's a single mom who doesn't like to work on weekends so she can spend time with her son (which explains the unknown brown substance).  (This Strike #200 is specially reserved for Nate)  We told her to take the Lunchables home to her son and she said she doesn't even feed him those.  Ha!

The rest of the ride wasn't any different/better than we had previously experienced.  When we were dropped off, we saw the Lunchables were out of the cooler sitting in the trunk....yeah, lets feed those to the garbage can instead.  Plus there were no gift bags or t-shirts for us!  I'll make the disclaimer here that I really couldn't care less about another t-shirt to put in my Goodwill pile but when you pay $30/person and get....what we got....I want my f*ing t-shirt!

That was quite possibly most hilarious experience of my life, thus far.  I have new ab muscles from those 2.5 hours.  Don't misinterpret though, Nate will be getting a harshly worded phone call from us.  I mean, who runs a business like that?!  We won't be using him again until....maybe ever......but ahhh the memories :)