As requested, the Porto story

After receiving my weekly booty call, I was at Metro's apartment. The display atop the kitchen cabinets had expanded to include not only the "commercial lighting", which is a story in and of itself, but also very artistically arranged crates, wine bottles, plastic grapes and faux foliage. Apparently Metro had a new hobby and fancied himself a wine connoisseur, despite his habit of purchasing his wines in bulk at HEB. I asked him, "Do you know about wine?"

Not really he replied and more enthusiastically informed me that he had gotten a wine journal.

"A what?"

" A wine journal. I've long wanted to keep track of all the wines I've tried along with their descriptions," he said.

"I'd like to see it," thinking I can scan it for useful information in case we discuss wine in the future.

"Well...I haven't started it yet. But I've got a great bottle of porto we can open up and try."

"Port?" Up to this point my exposure to port wine was limited to the pink and orange nut covered cheese ball found in the grocer's deli case, usually for $1.50.

"No, porto," he says, choosing not to explain further. "But I don't have the right kind of glasses."

"You don't have wine glasses?" I answer, stunned that Mr. Metro himself would be lacking in anything. Even I own 2 wine glasses, souvenirs of senior prom and senior breakfast.

"I don't have porto glasses. They're like a wine glass but shorter and rounder."

"Isn't that a brandy snifter?"

"No." He answered, dropping the subject in lieu of sex, a topic that I am well educated on and one that doesn't require much conversation.

Later, determined to see the wine journal and to prove that I'm as cultured as the next girl, I mentioned it'd be a great time to try the wine. It is a dessert wine after all, and we had just finished dessert.

Metro got up, naked except for his ever present t-shirt, which kept his chest warm and prevented coughing fits, opened the porto and poured it into 2 plastic stadium cups. He went to get the journal making comments about the wine needing to breathe in order for us to properly taste it.

He took a sip and tried to discern the subtle flavors of this particular wine. He wrote it's name, maker and year in the journal and gave his summation, which I have sadly forgotten. But it was something like, "A hint of pears and rose blossoms," which he dutifully wrote in the journal under the comment section.

So I tried mine, trying really hard to taste pears and roses. But I didn't.

"It tastes like pecan grit."

"What?"

"You know when you eat a pecan and you get that little bit of bitter shell stuck between your teeth. That's pecan grit."

He just looked at me in astonishment.

"Write that down. You have to put in the journal that it tastes like pecan grit." I took the pen and made the notation myself and gave him the rest of my wine, which was quite nasty once the undertone of pecan grit had been identified.

Next morning as I was preparing to leave, he got a phone call from his store. (At the time he was a regional manager for a nationally recognized organization.) I was sitting in the living room listening to his end of the conversation as he tried to smooth things over with the irate customer. He walked into the living room, naked except for the t-shirt, and stood there using his best the-customer-is-always-right voice, while little Metro was swinging in the breeze.

Maybe the customer knew the bigwig she was complaining to was butt-ass naked. Maybe his organization approved of doing business in the altogether. Maybe it was a human relations technique approved by UH, flashing the full Monty. It is for sure one of my favorite images. Metro naked is a beautiful thing.