What Princess Wants . . .

"So I want to go to this wine store . . . and get wine with labels for each game . . ."

Princess is telling me of her plans for this year of tailgating. A voracious Michigan fan, Princess and I have been on opposite sides of the Michigan/Michigan State rivalry. But I have been honored with an invite for the first home game . . . a big deal, as it was suspected that I might show up in green. (I bought a new Michigan shirt just for the occasion. It burns my flesh a little, but I'm hoping to blend in.) And Princess's family knows how to tailgate. They have made it an art form. There's even a special car involved somehow.

Last year, Princess brought themed wine titles that she meticulously shopped for . . . bringing a new brand to each game. This year the plan was to "make wine" for each game.

The "microwinery" is near work, so I get there first. There is a rather rowdy group of people bottling and corking their own wine . . . sort of like a boy or girl scout trip for making something, but with alcohol and adults. And those adults had "tasted" the wine.

And there are two employees. One behind the counter on the computer and one who keeps asking me if she can help me with anything, even though I keep telling her that my friend is meeting me here and she is in charge.

Princess arrives and explains what she want to do. 16 bottles of wine, one red and one white for each game. All with different labels. I am there as wine label design consultant and we sit and draw out what she wants. I pick out the fonts. We taste wine, helpfully served up by the "may I help you" employee. I then write out what needs to be put on every label. I present this to the employees. And it can be done, for the price of the wine, plus five dollars for the custom label.

"All right. Let's do it then." And the plan then immediately falls apart. The behind the desk employee is suddenly skeptical, or maybe it was the whooping in the background, or the fact that they were tipsy, so they kept messing up labels on their wine . . . I don't know. But the behind the desk lady. She wanted to nix the whole plan.

"Well . . . we could do that in a week. Usually takes at least a week for special orders."

But Princess wants the wine tonight. What's the problem? You just print up the labels and smack them on the bottles, right? And her money, it's green.

But the behind the desk lady is done with us. She does not want to sell us wine. And she has to go home and feed hamburger to her family. And she may know the limitations of the may I help you lady . . . who knows nothing about the label making device.

"No, problem. I brought Emily. She can do anything on a computer." But I cannot go behind the counter. It's against company policy (for good reason). So the may I help you lady has Princess picking out the wine . . . so we can "soak" the labels off. And the behind the desk lady is arguing that it can't be done. And I am getting crabby.

As soon as the women get remotely out of earshot, I point out to Princess that we could go to the grocery store and the office supply store and do exactly the same thing. For less than five dollars. And without either lady helping us. But Princess wants this "experience".

The behind the desk lady leaves. I patiently walk the "may I help you" lady through the computer layout process from six feet away, without actually knowing the program (wine label pro . . . ). And when I say walking through . . . I mean, "Go to file. No up at the top. File. More to the left. Yes, file. Now click on it. Now find something that says print."

We manage to get the label finished. It only takes an hour. But when printing, it is discovered that she has chosen the wrong template with the help of the "I just want to go home and make hamburger." lady. The rowdy people have finished their bottling and now want to hustle her for tasting. And there are only two labels removed . . . fourteen more to go.

"Just go back there." Princess hisses. And so I do. I find the correct template (#1800). I remake the entire label because the program with not do simple functions, like copy and paste. I have to print out each label individually because there is no function for multiple labels with different type. I spell all the games, dates and wines correctly, changing colors for white and red wines. Princess is now behind the counter taking off the labels. The rowdy people are still there, buying out the store, pulling things from the wall to purchase. The may I help you lady does not know how to ring anything up and has to make phone calls. The rowdy group finally pays and leaves . . . but only after they tell us their drunken border crossing story. Evidently, if you can get over the U.S. border drunk then you are exempt from being pulled over anywhere else. You are invincible.

Two and a half hours later, all of the bottles are labelled with each distinct game. There are more phone calls so she can charge us . . . but really Princess and I did all of it. But Princess had them in her car at the end of the evening. We did not have to wait a week.

So if you want custom wine labels, I can do it . . . and Princess is very handy at removing the old labels. Princess insists that I will be famous for my design work . . . but I'm not sure I want to be famous for this. Next time I'll just do it in my kitchen.

I was taken out for a nice dinner for my services. And the bottles do look very nice. And I think I probably got that lady fired, if there were any cameras at all.