When I met Zach Groth's parents for the first time, they asked me what the best part of living in Manhattan was and the answer rolled off my tongue without effort or thought -- "Your son's job."
Zach and I moved to New York City within a few months of each other and both started out at different jobs than we currently have. I actually started at TIME the same week he started at his new job, so I'm sure there will be a grand celebration for our one-year work-aversary at probably (and by probably, I mean definitely) Barfly because we're both very lucky to have landed positions we genuinely enjoy.
To be completely honest, I have pretty much no idea of what Zach actually does at his job. I do know he has to keep track of what he does every 30 minutes (a task that seems literally impossible to me, someone who once spent significantly longer than that making a Bijmoji with her co-workers and boss), juggles his time between multiple clients (one of which heavily involves a winery) and sometimes is in the office calling Spain at four in the morning (this happens more often than you would think and makes me feel very guilty I don't have to be at work until 10:30 and only come in four days a week).
But, I also know he is very good at his job, whatever it is, and, because of that, he is in charge of a lot of wine.
Before Zach got this job, I was never a big wine drinker -- a thing that will probably shock anyone who has either seen me post anything on Instagram in the past year or has ever met my parents, the people who remodeled their entire home based around a walk-in wine closet. In college, the few times I got drunk off wine, I became uncomfortably sad and had hangovers that lasted for days. This is likely because I was very poor in college, so we would only drink extremely cheap wine for our "Tuesday Night Wine Nights" and, generally, Chelsea and I purchased them based solely on how cute the label was designed.
To be honest, I am still just about as poor as I was in college because New York City is expensive and, somehow, it is pretty much impossible not to walk out of my apartment without spending at least $20. So, when Zach started being in charge of wine and bringing bottles home, it became a great and classy way to save money on alcohol -- which is why most Friday nights, you can now find ZG and I being "classy" by sitting on his couch, each of us with our own bottle, generally watching music videos and arguing whether or not Chris Brown is in the Nicki Minaj song, "Only." (Turns out, he is and I still owe Zach $100 because of it).
Zach's unlimited access to fancy wines has now made me accustomed to a lifestyle I cannot afford, but am getting for free. Because of his job, I am now a huge wine drinker, but if he ever leaves his position, there is no way I'll be able to feasibly drink the type of bottles we currently do.
Thus, part of the reason why ZG's job is the best thing to happen to me since moving to Manhattan.
Now, besides the wine, Zach also has to go to fancy events and, sometimes, he'll invite some of his friends to go along with him. This past Friday, he had to attend a wine tasting on a rooftop in Brooklyn and, knowing both my love for wine, rooftops AND Brooklyn, he told me I could come.
When Friday came around, I was not prepared for a fancy evening. I don't work on Friday's (something that makes our Thursday night outings to Barfly much, much easier) and, while most people think I spend my extra day off doing cool things, I'm usually just laying in bed with a chicken sandwich while watching "It's Always Sunny." And, prior to me meeting up with ZG at his place of work this past Friday, that was exactly how I'd spent my entire day.
I realized I was perhaps in over my head when I made a move to head toward the subway, but Zach directed us instead toward a private black car. I haven't taken a personal black car since the time my mom refused to pick me up from the airport in 2014 because Zach and I started sending her selfies from The Chug at 4:30 in the morning, so while I was trying to keep my excitement contained, I have no chill and may have literally squealed.
Gina refused to pick me up from the airport after this photo was sent.
Now, Zach and I do not have the best of luck with drivers. Though I have great experiences with my cab drivers when I'm alone, such as discussing in-depth conspiracy theories about the Titanic or singing "Hotline Bling" together, for some reason, there always seems to be an incident when Zach and I get into a car together. Last Thursday night, for example, we were almost hit by oncoming cars three times in our short cab ride home from Barfly and, once, our Lyft driver refused to bring us to the correct area we'd asked to go in Greenpoint because he seemed confident we were going to die, leaving us stranded on the side of the road.
I was hoping this wouldn't be the case for our fancy evening, but I knew we were going to be in trouble with our private driver when Zach broke the window shade (because, yes, this car was so fancy, it had window shades) of his car. The look of contempt this man shot at us was staggering. At this point, we were still in Midtown -- had barely moved twenty feet, if that -- and the guy still had to take us all the way to Brooklyn.
ZG and I chatted as we normally do, catching up on the last 15 hours since we'd seen each other, and our driver was silent the entire time. But, as we approached the Brooklyn Navy Yard, the place where the event was being held, and the security barrier that guards it, he slowed down his car, turning his head around to ask us if we had security clearance to get in and/or the address.
We had neither of those things.
Our driver's patience with us was being tested, but after very dramatically rolling his eyes at our behavior, he tried to keep his cool and, eventually, we were able to finagle ourselves past security and onto where we believed the event would be.
Now, I'm not sure if you've ever been to the Brookyn Navy Yard at night, but it is a bizarre scene -- it's very dark, very ominous and there are absolutely no people around, save for men peeking their heads out of the warehouse doors, wondering why this black car was slowly circling the perimeter. It took us awhile, but we found a somewhat approximation of where we thought the event was and, trying to get us out of the car as fast as possible, the driver stopped and unlocked the doors.
Then, he left us, stranded in Brooklyn amongst the warehouses.
Just as our Lyft driver was confident we were going to die in Greenpoint, I was very sure the Brooklyn Navy Yard is where Zach Groth and I would perish. Zach and I have only been to Brooklyn together a handful of times and none of them have ended well. There was, of course, the time we went to Bushwick for Jamie's death metal concert and, yet another night, where we somehow ended up at a motorcycle biker bar, then accidentally took the subway so deep into Brooklyn instead of going back to Manhattan that the two of us just sat on the subway steps at 3 a.m. watching the rats go up and down the stairs and feeling a general despair for our current situation.
So, it made sense that this is where we were going to die.
Turns out (spoiler alert!), we didn't die. After being directed up a sketchy pair of stairs, we stumbled into the event half an hour early and the ambience of the rooftop wine tasting was much, much different than the situation we'd found ourselves in just minutes earlier. Everyone running the event was very nice and, after showing us around the multiple tents, they handed Zach and I our tasting glasses and told us to have fun.
Now, I'd never been to an actual wine tasting, so I was both shocked and delighted to see how tiny the glasses were. I was shocked because, as I said earlier, Zach and I spent most Friday nights each with our own bottle of wine, so this small glass thing was new for me. But, a lover of miniature items, I was elated to find that once we were done with the event, I'd get to take home my little glass, which I then assumed I would utilize in the future for shots.
Anyway, because we were trying the wines in one ounce samples, I was sober when I made my first mistake at being fancy. In one of the tents, there were multiple food vendors, all of whom also had miniature portions. The food was so adorable and so tiny that I took a photo at every table we went to, embarrassing Zach, but solidifying the options I would have for a great Instagram feed later on in the evening.
Like, everything was cute
Though perhaps very millennial, that is not the mistake I made at being fancy.
The mistake I made at being fancy happened with the pepperoni and cheese samples. Zach and I were chatting with the woman running the booth when I ate one of the mini cheeses (okay, two), then placed both toothpicks into the bowl on the table.
Zach's eyes widened in horror, though I was unclear why and, as fast as possible, pulled me away from the woman's view. That's when he told me that I had just placed my two used toothpicks not in the trash bowl as I had presumed, but in the bowl where all the clean toothpicks were kept.
My eyes reached the same level of wideness as Zach's and, without another word, the two of us left the tent and headed into the VIP area...
...Which is where I met Om.
Trying to get over the embarrassment of what I'd just done with the toothpicks, I headed to the wine as soon as Zach and I got inside the VIP tent. And, that's where Om was. He was serving four types of wine and he didn't know anything about any of them. He'd shown up later on during the event to work as a favor to a friend and, while he wasn't very good at explaining the wine, he was very good at pouring me more than the recommended one ounce serving while winking at me like it was our secret.
Om was totally and completely my type -- dark hair, hipster, gauges, cool name, neck tattoos (sorry, Mom), skilled at serving me alcohol -- basically everything I look for in a potential boyfriend. So, after establishing that Om was going to keep serving me more wine, Zach and I began chatting with a winemaker about things I really didn't understand. Interested, but confused, I spent most of the time looking back at Om, who would again wink at me, then motion for me to come over so he could fill up my glass more.
This is, perhaps, the moment of the night where I started to get slightly tipsy.
While I appreciated the conversation we were having the winemaker, I appreciated Om's dark eyes much more, so eventually, I broke off from the group and started to chat with just him.
Zach is a good friend, not only because he brings me to fancy events, but because he also knows I am trying to date again and realizes how awkward I am with men. (He's really been putting most of his effort lately into getting Serria and I to stop doing finger guns when approaching guys -- it has been largely unsuccessful so far). Anyway, Zach saw me talking to Om and, again, recognizing he was completely my type, let me do my thing, intervening only when he thought I was going to blow things or say something embarrassing.
This is how the two of us came to learn about Om's life, which was absolutely fabulous.
Om was born in Colombia many, many years ago, but moved to Miami when he was in high school. He'd lived in Brooklyn for about ten years, was very invested in his bike, rock climbing and was employed as both a chef in the East Village as well as completing personalized house calls where he'd either teach people how to cook or just make them food from the comfort of their apartment.
Oh, and also, before all that, he'd been in the monastery for seven years, but decided to leave because life in New York City was too engaging and he really wanted a neck tattoo.
It may have been the wine, but at this point, I was pretty sure I had just met my future husband. Later on, Zach too said he was fairly convinced I was going to end up moving in with Om that night and be married by the morning.
And, that could have been the case. Forty-five minutes into our conversation, Om had single-handedly succeeded in getting me to finish off the entire bottle of sparkling wine, I was just waiting for him to officially ask me out and Zach was internally trying to figure out how he was going to get back to Manhattan without me considering we were both very sure the beginning of my life in Brooklyn with Om was starting.
But, during an in-depth discussion about our favorite places to travel and as casually as I would say, "I went to Mexico once," Om started a sentence with, "Oh, my ex-husband used to really enjoy going there!"
At the same exact time, ZG and I both choked on our wine, then tried to play it off like we both weren't completely shocked my potential future husband was actually gay. Within minutes, we were gone -- my dreams of living a fancy life in Brooklyn with a former monk/current chef had vanished -- and, Zach and I loaded ourselves into yet another black car from the depths of the Brooklyn Navy Yard.
Still stunned by the turn of events, Zach and I were both quiet as our driver took us back to Manhattan.
"I can't be fancy, ZG," I whispered to him in the car, finally feeling the effects of the multiple one ounce wine servings.
"That's alright, JP," he replied from next to me. "At least you kind of tried."
Then, he immediately asked the man driving us to turn up the radio -- an old Kelly Clarkson song was playing -- and the two of us sang with no shame at the top of our lungs as we crossed the bridge back into our city.
From the front seat, our new driver rolled his eyes.