SNL 2020

Pantry or Dick

August is here which means my birthday is already peeking around a corner. And in the first week of August, I found myself...learning how to make fruit wine.

With LiPin and ZhiMing.

Me: This is wrong. Why am I enrolled in this class again?

ZhiMing: I enrolled you because I need you to be here as well.

Me: Why?

ZhiMing: To make this whole thing tolerable for me.

Me: (turning) And why are you here?

LiPin: (sighing) Because I was stupid enough to express little interest in fruit wine in ZhiMing's earshot. He literally begged me to enroll as well.

ZhiMing: Just think of this as a class to prepare you both to marry into elite families.

LiPin and I gave him a "are you insane" look.

LiPin: (in a carrying tone) Dayu is the only one getting married into an elite family.

Some other students there looked at us.

Me: (annoyed) Can you shout that louder? I think the people outside this building hasn't heard you.

LiPin: Sorry. But really, this is ridiculous. It's not like Dayu and I don't know how to make fruit wine. It's just fruits, rock sugar and good spirit.

Me: Yes, what she said.

Spoiler alert: Its not that simple.

There are temperature, humidity, season, weather, storage and other elements to consider when making fruit wine. Also, there's a whole hour of explanation when's the best time to consume a particular fruit wine and what food or snack to pair them with. Its a whole lot of things...

Me: (to ZhiMing) Why are you suddenly into fruit wines again?

ZhiMing: Our family is interested in putting fruit wines in our supermarkets. We are looking for local wine makers to see about the supply. I was relegated to learning about them.

LiPin: And you drag us here, why?

ZhiMing: For company. You two didn't expect me to learn these things on my own, right?

Me: Don't you have other friends? Rich ass people like you?

ZhiMing: They are boring companies. Besides, you two are sleeping with two of my childhood friends. I practically raised Qing and Jin, you owe me this much for them.

LiPin: I've only been with Jin for what...almost a year? I think nine months. That's not long enough for me to start kissing his friends' egos.

Me: And I am surrounded with people who couldn't buy any vowels for their names other than letter "i".

ZhiMing and LiPin glared at me. I smiled at them.

Finally, we got to the tasting part of the lessons. I love the raspberry and peach fruit wine. LiPin is partial to mulberry wine because she loves mulberry while ZhiMing is into the more tart taste of bayberry wine.

All in all, it wasn't such a bad lesson.

After that, we got to keep the fruit wine we made. I hope Qing likes raspberry wine because I have two good sized jars of them. After the lesson, the three of us went to dinner. We decided on a meditterean restaurant.

Me: (to LiPin) How long will you be here in Beijing this time?

LiPin: A month, at least.

ZhiMing: A month? That's long. Why?