Burt Likko

Pseudonymous Portlander. Homebrewer. Atheist. Recovering litigator. Recovering Republican. Recovering Catholic. Recovering divorcé. Recovering Former Editor-in-Chief of Ordinary Times. House Likko's Words: Scite Verum. Colite Iusticia. Vivere Con Gaudium.

More Posts Twitter Facebook

13 Comments

  1. Please, please tell me that you didn’t observe someone trying to open a champagne bottle with the cork pointed directly at their face.

    • No, that would have been stupidity, condemnable for a different reason. This was a social sin of unwarranted and effusive anxiety. A bottle of chilled bubbly need not be treated like it is a lit stick of dynamite simply because the wire cage has been removed from the cork.

      I’m not saying a man needs to know the sabre trick, either. (Looks cool but wastes the champagne.) Just acquire sufficient confidence to gently but firmly twist the cork out of the neck and trap it in your palm, without causing the sort of overfizz that is only appropriate in a locker room following the team’s earning a championship.

      • Gotcha. That is certainly unmanly. I had assumed that the only reason one might wind up physically afraid of a champagne bottle would be if they had it pointed at their own face.

        But what you describe is probably worse. Such a person deserves merciless ridicule (good-natured, of course!) over a period of years.

        Perhaps next time this person is around, someone else could open the champagne, while shouting “Okay! Everyone get underneath your desks! The WIRE IS OFF THE BOTTLE!”

        • Havingg everyone don hard hats and goalie masks would be a nice touch as well.

          • …I’d say something apologetic or corrective about the typo, but I don’t want to take up commenting space for no good reason.

    • Dude. What I’m saying is, open the bottle with confidence and move on with the seduction. That’s what champagne is for.

      • I prefer just bringing a six-bottle pack of beer, preferably with the lids you can unscrew without a bottle opener. But then, I’m in a committed relationship, so I just ask my girlfriend to open the bottle.

  3. Metrosexual peckercheck: Closest thing to Teddy Roosevelt on the American scene today is a mother of five with a much better rack. She can field-skin a moose and could kick more men out of bed than would or could kick her out.

    I don’t want her for my president, gentlemen, but we as a people got a real problem with manpersonliness here.

    • Interesting that you mention TR. I’m reading The Rough Riders right now. The Colonel was a guy who didn’t feel the need to polish off all his rough edges, that’s for sure — despite (or because of?) his privileged background.

  4. If you want to do it with headwaiterly flourish, peel off the cage, take a small handtowel and is it to cradle the bottle while simultaneously trapping the cork. Carry the bottle at an angle, pointed (assuming you are right-handed,) to the left. Hold the cork through the towel in the left hand and twist the bottle — not the cork but the bottle because you get better leverage.

    You wants a small pop. A gasp, really. Good Champagne does not explode, it sighs. Wait ten seconds or so with the bottle at an angle to avoid a chimney effect and spillover, then pour.

    Then tell her, “Hey, baby: I write a blog.”

Comments are closed.