Wonderland 2024

B-1. Curiouser and Curiouser

PROMPT ▼

Stranger things have happened, so why not share the most curious thing that's ever happened to you. Alice would definitely empathize. (<500 words)

Where I grew up in Northern California, there were a lot of local wineries. Spending a day going from one to the next wine tasting was a popular date activity for those old enough to partake, and one of my first ever jobs after getting my driver's license was to be the designated driver for my parents' friends so they didn't have to worry about getting themselves home after an entire afternoon of drinking. Little did I know that the wine tasting experience would lead to some truly curious happenings, mostly related to me having to act like an adult to other adults, some of them a good three decades older than me.

To start, there was the time I took my mom's boss wine tasting with his new girlfriend and, toward the end of the afternoon, they couldn't keep their hands to themselves in the backset. They started making out, then started aggressively feeling each other up as I drove them home. At one point I think they realized that a sixteen year old was their driver and acted like a deer caught in the headlights... before devolving into a giggle fit while they started making out again. The following Monday at work (I also worked part-time at my mom's company), her boss - who was the head of an entire division - averted eye contact in the hallways like he had been caught making out by his girlfriend's parents.

Then there was the time that my parents went out wine tasting, told me they would be back by 6pm. By the time 7pm rolled around, I was calling their cell phones repeatedly trying to get someone to pick up. By 7:30pm I was convinced that something had happened and was wondering if I should call the police, or the local hospital to see if something had happened. When they rolled into the garage around 8pm, I was worked up into a frenzy. The minute they got in the door, I gave them the third degree.

"Do you know what time it is? I've been worried sick!"

"Where have you been? Too busy to call and say you were running late?"

"Were your phones not working? When I call, you need to pick up!"

"It's going to be a very long time before you're allowed to go wine tasting again!"

It was a weird feeling to be lecturing my parents and their friends, people who were literally twice or even three times my age, about acting responsibly. But that was the Curious Case of the Teenage Authority Figure that I lived through in my youth...


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(437 words)