My WSET Diploma Case Study exam on the South African wine industry is tomorrow morning.  Save for my daughter’s indoor soccer game on Saturday night, I spent the entire weekend sequestered inside, studying.  And I’ve officially reached my saturation point.  Even if I wanted to, I cannot absorb one more statistic about the South African wine industry.  My brain is mush.

A good way to tell you’ve reached your saturation point is when you have the dream.  You know, the classic unprepared-for-an-exam dream.  Every once in a while, I still have the dream about college (which makes me wonder if college scarred me on some subliminal level).  My favorite dream is always the one where I arrive to take an exam for a class that I never attended.  Good times.

So, my wine dream.

I arrived to take my case study exam, and discovered that instead of South Africa, we would be taking a practical exam on (wait for it) . . . home economics.

What in the wide world of hell?

I looked around, expecting everyone else to be as stupefied as I was.  But I was the only one who was unprepared.  Shocker, right?

Our first challenge was jewelry making.  We had to refashion a coin ring using nothing but rocks.  Do I at least get a chisel?

Then there was the cut and carve candle making challenge.  Do you remember these candles?  That’s what we were supposed to be making.  I made a gray blob with a wick.

Next, we had to break down and identify all of the olfactory components of Old Spice cologne,  Swagger flavor.  Cinnamon with a hint of frankincense, thankyouverymuch.  Nailed it.

But perhaps the best and weirdest part of the whole dream was the absence of a blind wine tasting . . . in favor of a blind cheese tasting.  Yes, cheese.  We had to identify the variety of each cheese, the country of origin, and method of production.  Ready, set . . . GO!!

Yep, I’m losing it.

I’d better go study some more.

Cheers!