Such Grape Heights: Wine Away Is Magic

-j-j- and I went to La Creperie recently, a little French place in Lakeview. We were in a bit of a hurry to catch a movie (Fantastic Mr. Fox) across the street, so we each ordered a glass of wine, and I waited at our table while she darted across the street to purchase our tickets.

While she was gone, the waiter arrived with two glasses of red. As he approached the table and brought my glass in for its landing, I had a brief thought flicker across my mind: What if he spills that on me? That thought was immediately dismissed: He is a professional waiter.

One second later, like a snapshot, I saw the glass tilted toward me, its contents a tiny vertical wall of crimson liquid. Well whaddaya know, I thought, and in an instant the entire glass was on my lap, soaking my jeans.

The kid was staggeringly apologetic, and he didn’t do it on purpose, and I didn’t want to be the Indignant Asshole Customer or make him feel worse than he already did. On the other hand, what the hell, man? I stifled my anger and frustration. How convincingly, I’m not sure.

-j-j- returned to find me stone-faced with a dishtowel on my crotch, and she quickly put together what had happened. I retreated to the restroom and sopped up what I could, then slipped the towel into the leg of my pants to form a barrier between me and my wet jeans.

All our wine was comped. I eventually settled down. The kid never stopped apologizing. But now I had to sit through the movie with wet pants and my worries about whether the jeans would ever be wearable again.

My mom gave me a bottle of Wine Away for Christmas several years ago, in the wake of a massive spill on a new pair of khakis I’d suffered earlier that year. For a long time, I had no need for it, so it sat untouched in the closet with my laundry detergent. Then some time later, I dropped a bottle of wine and the ensuing crash spattered a few drops on a sweatshirt. Cursing the whole time, I took the sweatshirt and the Wine Away to the Laundromat. With absolutely no optimism, I spritzed the potion on the stain.

Like something out of a movie, the wine stain vanished before my eyes, and all that remained was an acrid scent of burnt oranges.

While I watched Fantastic Mr. Fox, my mind kept returning to my depleted stash of Wine Away. Would it work on denim? Was there a danger of letting the stain set for hours before using it? Did I have enough left for the size of the stain?

I got home and spritzed like my life depended on it. I had barely enough left to cover the wine stain, and that’s including when I unscrewed the cap and shook every last drop onto my jeans. The denim was dark and damp, so it was hard to tell for sure, but it looked like the stain was disappearing.

I washed in cold water and drip dried.

Success.
Before.