The Wine Press Incident

On Tuesday the first of October, at 2:00 am, my friend and I found ourselves wide awake and discussing ZIP codes. Why we were discussing ZIP codes is a story in and of itself, but this story focuses on the results of that one. When one finds something interesting, they look into it. When two find the same thing interesting, they discus it. So, my friend and I discussed ZIP codes after an interesting textbook reading (yes, textbooks can be interesting). The results of such conversation, however, lead to an interesting event in the following hours.

The sun had not yet risen when I had awoken from my four hour slumber. I was groggily, like most people are when they first wake up, and hurried to get ready so my friend and I could get breakfast before classes started. We made it to breakfast and it was obvious that neither of us were fully awake, but we had no plans on skipping classes. We're at college to learn, not sleep, so we dragged ourselves to our classes.

My first class that day happened to be at 8:00 am, and was an Art History class. All seemed to be going well. I didn't need to talk much, but I did have to keep myself from dozing off when the professor shut the lights off to show some pictures on the projector.

We were talking about Martin Luther when it started. The Professor asked a simple question, "What are indulgences?"

No one answered. We sat in silence for a minute or so before I raised my hand. As many of you know, I'm an English major. I love the English language and know the definitions to many, many words. The professor called on me and I gave him the correct answer. "

"Indulgences are something, like a slip of paper, you buy that's supposed to get you or a loved one into heaven."

Class continued and we were talking about how the printing press started and what the inspiration behind it was. On the screen, in front of the class, appeared a picture of an old wine press.

The professor asked, "Can anyone tell me what this is?"

Again no one answered.

I stared at it for a bit, knowing what it was but finding myself unable to produce its name. Then I was called on.

"Ashley, what is this?"

For the life of me I couldn't recall what the name of the object was, so my brain seemed to decided the best option was to just give it's description.

"Um, it's the thing where you turn the handle and it drops that thing that falls and squishes grapes."

The professor stared at me for a moment before cracking a grin and saying, "You mean a wine press?"

"Yeah! That thing!" I exclaimed. That was the name I had been searching for.

Not my finest moment, by far, but definitely an mildly humorous one. I've shared the story with my friend, who I was awake with the night before, and she's determined not to let me live it down. I deserve it though. Seriously! A wine press! I should have known that! I did know that, but for some reason I couldn't say it.

Thus was discovered that I can't name objects in the early hours after late night conversations...I can only describe things using juvenile language.