A few days ago, I went down into the basement, as I do most nights, to contemplate that night’s bottle of wine. I moseyed on over to where I store my white Burgundies (chardonnay) since I was making a seafood risotto that night. As I was contemplating one of the greater ‘Wine Guy’ questions (‘Meursault
or Montrachet?’), I heard a disturbing drip from around the corner. Initially, I ignored it. Yes, we live in a 120+ year-old house. Yes, less than six months ago, I was shin deep in water (in the same area of the basement where I now stood) thanks to the torrential rains before and during Hurricane Irene. Yes, it was awful. Yes, my wife was on call and not home those nights, and yes, I was in the basement with a bucket and a prayer, trying to save my wine (not to mention the rest of the house). Nope. I did not think of any of that. After all, it was not raining–in fact we have not had any significant rainfall in some time. Nope. Instead of immediately trying to assess the cause of the curious and potentially alarming rhythm, I was obsessed with trying to find a bottle of 
Chassagne-Montrachet that I did not remember drinking (as if ‘remember’ and ‘drinking’ ever go hand-in-hand).
After a good ten minutes of confirming my self-diagnosis of OCD by looking for that Chassagne, I venture the six feet around the corner to check out the sounds of water boarding. Well, I found the source (no, it was not Dick Cheney–OK, cheap joke). I stood there looking at it. For a while. I was frozen. Looking at it. Dumbfounded. I should have timed myself–how long can you just stand there like a huge effing moron, knowing you have to act, and act quickly, but yet you do nothing with your finger up your, um, nose? If I had timed it, I would have been in line for the Guinness World Freaking Record (‘The Longest Time Just Standing There Like a Huge Effing Moron, Having to Act, and Act Quickly, But Yet Doing Nothing With a Finger Up the, um, Nose’ Record). Great. So not only am I OCD, but I also become completely paralyzed in a crisis. This country is soooo lucky they got rid of the draft….
Well, the water was dripping from the sewer line and it was landing on one of my wine racks. Inside, I was screaming “OHHHHNONONONO!!!!! Do something, anything! MOVE, MOVE, MOVE!!!” Outside, if you saw me at that moment, you would have thought I was watching someone mow the lawn. Several bottles were getting doused with a very foul smelling substance, yet there I stood, paralyzed from the neck down. After a period of time that would make anyone leave the doctor’s waiting room in a huff regardless of the throbbing pain, I heard a scream from upstairs. No, it was not my wife (why is she seemingly never at home during any basement emergency?!?–Mighty suspicious…), rather, the boys were upstairs running around having a great time playing. So, being in the running for father-of-the-year and therefore wanting to put an end to their joy, I was forced out of my hypnotic trance and into action. I yell upstairs and order the boys downstairs immediately. They run down and stand at attention. I let them know that we have to empty the wine rack under assault and move the wine to higher ground (wait, maybe I could have made it in the army….). “Yes, Daddy. Umm what’s that smell?” “Never mind, get to work!” For a moment, I paused and assessed the situation: I had my eight and three-year old sons helping me move about five cases of alcohol that were in danger of being doused by a leaking sewer pipe.
I should have that father-of-the-year thing just about wrapped up, I figure.
Well, after about 20 minutes, we had cleared the area and I was felling marginally better. The pipe was still leaking, but the wine was safe and relatively unscathed. The boys did not seem to have any apparent ill-effects. My wife came home, leaving her ‘ladies-night-out’ to help walk me back from the cliff. So what do I do? You guessed it: I went back and tried to find that missing bottle of Chassagne-Montrachet.
I need help.
the drunken cyclist 
The real question here is did you find that bottle of wine? If yes, was it as delicious with dinner as you thought? If no, what did you decide to substitute it with?
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Ah, Kirsten I never knew you were an enabler! Great question, though. I did find it! So either that means I am not crazy but hopelessly disorganized, or my someone is rearranging my cellar to drive me crazy. I am sure there are other possibilities, but I am sticking with those….
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I like the idea that someone is messing with you, just a little bit. As someone who loves order, I also love the idea of tackling organizing a wine cellar; the endless possibilities that could go into possible structures… Of course there’s also the fun that would be discovering a bottle or two that needed to be consumed while organizing also make it a fun challenge.
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Oh great. Now you’re giving me a conspiracy theory complex—like I do not have enough problems….
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You sound like my twin estranged brother… (I hope you’re not, because it can’t be two like me… lol)
I empathize with this, as a former New York basement tenant, constantly battling flooding from the rain and various “back up” issues. The question is… how did it end? The sewer issue, because the drinking issue always ends up with “found it – drank it – blogged it”.
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Well, we got the line cleared, so no immediate issues. Going to have to dig up our cement patio, though, and replace the drain. Ugh.
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Ewww…. and is the sewer still dripping?
Hope the wine was worth it!
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Hi Simone! Thanks for the comment. No longer dripping, but we have some construction in our future. That should be loads of fun.
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I’m wondering if you plan on drinking those bottles that had the sewer dripping on them or will you offer them as presents to others?
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I have not come to grips with that yet. The pain thinking about it is too great…
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Bleach and drink: the best solution.
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Reblogged this on the drunken cyclist and commented:
I have been so tired since we got back from California, that I have not had the energy to do much of anything (except drink wine). So last night, instead of writing for this blog, I decided to look for an earlier post to re-blog instead. This was from a couple of years ago, but it could have easily been from any week we have lived in our house….
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Were there any long term ill effects to the wine? I’m think just messed up labels…
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The wine was fine, as far as I can tell. There was actually very little contact….
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Crack myself up each time I read this, I have to regain composure at exactly “you would’ve that I was watching someone mow the lawn 🙂 Great post xx
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Thanks! A lot more fun writing about it than living it (which I seem to say a lot…)!
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Haha, this seems traumatizing for you, and amusing for me. Although, I must confess I have yet to find a white wine I enjoy, so, if this happened to me, I’d only go in for the reds.
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You will have to come over and I will get you hooked on some whites!
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Jeff, I hope that all is saved and that there is no true loss. It will be a pain to relocate everything to allow the plumbers room to work, but you will work up a true thirst and enjoy some of the wines, but I would clean the bottles with a bleach solution first, just to be safe. Why couldn’t it have been where you store the everyday wines though?
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There really was very little damage–it was more of the shock of the whole thing. During a rain storm a couple years ago, the basement took on a lot of water and got perilously close to some bottles–I had visions of that happening again…
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Sorry to hear that you’ll have to find a way to soak those bottles in bleach. I’d probably be crying if I had to toss out otherwise perfectly good wine because of the “eeewww” factor on the outside. Drink a bottle of something else and dive in to the project, because, in my humble opinion, after a whole bottle of something else, you might be more inclined not care as much about the “drippings”. Wear gloves though.
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Yeah, I had all those visions racing through my head as I was standing there, about as active as waiting for a bus….
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