Gypsy.

I had corn for dinner. Not like fancy corn…just corn…in a bag. It’s like the Franzia of dinners.  It’s not like I didn’t have time to cook something more extravagant. Heck, even a frozen pizza would be a step up from this bagged treat, and yet here I sit, each wretched spoonful reminding me of the dinner guests I do not have. The steam creeping out of the handy ventilation system reeks of solitude.

Okay…I’m being dramatic. But seriously, this corn is a joke.

I find it difficult these days to cook a solid meal. My portions are all wrong. At the grocery store I try to be economical, but every container is built for families of four. There is, of course, the frozen food aisle of depression. Pushing my behemoth of a shopping basket around corners, filling it with embarrassingly small servings of fresh produce (umm, excuse me, can I only take 13 strawberries? And a half of an onion?) and every “single” option in the frozen food section (skillet for one, veggies for one, pasta for one, pity party for one…). Hey, HEB, I would love to cook enough for the block, but due to the lack of guests at my table, I’m going to need you to dial it back a bit.

It has taken me several trips to master the art of “shopping for one” and it all revolves around the magic of the baby cart. Step back soccer moms. Enjoy your giant cart filled with Captain Crunch and 6 loaves of bread. Step aside stay at home dads with your giant tube of ground chuck. Me and baby cart are coming through with our daintily packaged salad mixings and organic low-fat milk. Baby cart takes corners like a dream, and easily skirts the old lady taking her time by the cheese. Grab some gruyèré and get out of the way, Grandma. There is some Swiss that needs my attention. Then, it’s off to the wine aisle.

Franzia, like this corn, is a submission to mediocrity. With the quantity of choices on the wine aisle, it would be a travesty to choose the same terrible concoction every time. I would not say that I am a wine connoisseur, if fact, seldom do I meet a wine that I do not like. Some are better than others, but for the most part if they hang in the balance and stay somewhere south of dry and north of sweet, I am good to go. Wine is kind of like guys’ cologne. I am a fan of all, but blown away by few…with the exception of the elusive gypsy wine.

If I am being honest with myself, I keep wine in my house as a pretense. I enjoy it, but I hate drinking alone. In the movies, city savvy women always have a great selection of beverages on hand. Oh, would you like a drink dashingly handsome man that helped me bring up my grocery bags as I stumbled up the stairs with my milk and eggs? I have 7 choices of wine, 3 organic sodas, craft ales, 13 different flavors of tea, 4 types of juice and of course water...that has been filtered through pure gold. In my mind, without a plethora of hydration options, I will fail my calling as a single woman.

Every trip baby cart and I take to the wine aisle ends in my selecting one with the coolest bottle. One day, my childish selection turned out to be a game changer. Enter: Gypsy Wine. Typically I keep all my empty bottles as a cheap way to “decorate” the super awkward space above my counters. Besides, stupid fake vines and dust bunnies, there is really nothing that goes up there...and I can’t reach, so it’s pointless.

The one and only night I have had a real live dinner guest at my house, I opened a bottle of wine that to this day, I have never found again. It is also the one bottle that I managed to throw away. I bought it because it reminded me of the Renaissance Festival (two words: turkey legs. Okay 4 words: turkey legs; knife throwing…what?!) and it was under $10, which makes it a champ in my book. Little did I know I was accepting a challenge when I uncorked that bottle. The challenge of the gypsies. A challenge that would take me to grocery store aisles near and far in search of the one that got away.

 I have searched high and low for my Gypsy Wine, but in true gypsy fashion it has remained just out of my reach. What makes Gypsy Wine so great? I can’t quite put my finger on it. It is like that perfect scent that wafts gently from a man, the perfect balance of masculinity and the all-too-seldom scent of cleanliness. Both legends crossed my path since my immersion into the world of independence and solitude.

Most cologne smells exactly the same. Abercrombie, Polo, Armani, Burberry, mixed with the all-encompassing Old Spice (seriously…you ALL wear it). It’s a pretty cut and dry science. But every once in a while, someone will step out of the box and find a scent that is bold in its unfamiliarity. Enter: Gypsy Scent, admittedly harder to find, due to the need of a perfectly timed question for said cologne wearer. Too soon and you look like you have a crush. In a crowd and you look like a stalker. Alone and you look like a hussy. I choose the ‘take in a super deep breath if he is in your vicinity approach’. 

I have been graced with a scent I cannot place, and a wine I cannot find.

If you find my Gypsy Wine, tell it I miss it. I am sure it is sitting around a fire with the bards, recanting its adventures of HEB shelves everywhere. Reveling in the attention the other wines give it because its label looks like a cross between Starry Night and a Tim Burton film, and theirs looks like a Photoshop mishap.

And if you figure out how to ask someone what their cologne is because they smell intoxicating…let me know. Until then, I shall remain the creepy girl that stands too close in a crowd hoping to get just one more whiff of his gypsy scent.