And a box of your finest merlot!

I used to make fun of people who drank wine out of the box. Not that I'm not cheap about a lot of other things:

--When we go on vacation, we only eat at Subway
--At the movies, I still try to get the student ticket (even though my ID is from 1995)
--I actually compare prices on canned food: "Oh, the Wal-Mart brand is only $.32 and the Del Monte is $.38. Fancy name brand mixed vegetables. Who needs 'em? I'll keep my $.06!"

But when it came to wine, I thought the box was a new low. I mean, I'm all for the oversized bottle or even the jug but wine in a box? That's scraping the bottom of the...box.

I'm here to tell you, blog readers, that I was wrong. I took a trip to Beverage City a few weeks ago and was enlightened. I was with Frank and Thea and Frank and I soon went into our typical wine debate:

"Should we get a big bottle?"
"I know it's cheaper per glass but when we open it we have to drink the whole bottle."
"Sometimes I just want one glass of wine, you know? Can I just have one glass and not have to drink the whole damn bottle like a wino??"

Thea came to our rescue: "Why don't you get a box?" she suggested. Interesting. Thea has Gucci purses and a fancy 4Runner with one of those navigational systems. Yet she was suggesting the box. What's more, she explained that the box could solve all of our problems: You can open it and not worry about having to drink the whole thing in a short time period. You can actually have one glass at a time! And get this:

A box of wine holds the equivalent of FIVE bottles and it's only about $12! If you assume four glasses of wine per bottle that's 20 glasses in a box. That's $.60 per glass. If I keep buying the Wal-mart brand mixed veggies I will save $.06 per can so after ten cans I've earned a glass of wine!

So as you can see, the box is truly an underappreciated invention.

And to adress the notion that boxed wine is poor quality, I say quality schmality. If it's good enough for my Gucci-loving, navigational system-using friend, then it's good enough for anybody.

Now I'm a little tired from all this writing and calculating, I'm gonna go have me some Wal-mart mixed veggies and a single glass of boxed vino. Or maybe two.