dumb pérignon

Everyone says that the whole experience -- where you are, who you're with, etc. -- really influences whether or not you'll enjoy a wine. (Which is why when you're wine-tasting, you end up buying things that don't seem to taste as good when you open them at home vs. in a fancy tasting room with all of your friends and a winery employee who's doting on you and telling you all about every flavor and nuance in the wine.)

So let's take a look at last night, The Night of My First Dom Pérignon. I was hanging out at a typical Marina bar with the girls and our teacher from our pole-dancing class. We had just completed Level 5 and received our graduation G-strings. We were by far the most underdressed people at the bar -- we were in sweats/jeans and sweatshirts/hoodies, faces sans makeup. Meanwhile, all the other girls there looked like they had just gone shopping in L.A. and had gotten their hair professionally blown out an hour earlier. (Side note: Marina people boggle my mind. How do people look like this all the time?)

And in addition to this clothing disparity, I pulled my hamstring doing the splits in class last night, so I had an ice pack strapped to my leg with -- you guessed it -- the graduation G-string.

Hot.

So there we were: Seven ladies, not caring what we looked like, just happy to have some time to hang out and celebrate our ability to climb a pole, flip upside down and slide down it head-first. (Trust me, there is something truly empowering about knowing you have the upper-body strength to do this.) We were chattering away, when suddenly, a random guy from the table next to us announced that he thought we were intimidating but he wanted to buy us a bottle of Dom Pérignon.

How can you turn down a $400 bottle of wine? I don't think I've even been in the same room with this stuff before.

So he ordered it -- a 1995 Dom Rosé, which reminded me of French toast covered in berries. It was perfectly balanced and delicious.

But then we started talking to the guy, only to discover that he was from La Cañada, which is where I went to high school. And he actually went to the Catholic boys school that was our brother school -- I was on their homecoming court way back in the day in 1996. (And remember: I hated high school largely because of the people I went to school with. All rich and annoying, kind of like the Marina.)

And upon further discussion, we discovered he was the oldest son from "Home Improvement." And he made sure to tell us he now works in production for Ashton Kutcher's show "Punk'd." (The guy also kept flashing his credit cards and dropping names. Did I mention the word "annoying"?)

And then we found out that he and his friends thought we were some kind of lesbian feminist book club/discussion group.

(Side note: Are straight women not allowed to be smart and have heated discussions? Are we also not allowed out of the house unless we look like we are going to a photoshoot?)

So now, alas, I will forever associate the Dom Pérignon 1995 Rosé with stupid, stupid boys.