FRANKIE DeGROOT | News | CONTACT
A frazzled young mother of three children under the age of 6 will again be checking out the free-to-air current affairs offerings tonight, in the desperate hope that the bottle of red wine at the back of the pantry will once again be healthy.
Erica Wright is in the unfortunate position of being health-conscious enough that she is mindful of what she puts in her body, whilst at the same time being driven to drink by offspring that have somehow managed to spill almost all of the kinetic sand into the carpet again.
Wine and chocolate are perennial favourites of the soft-target current affairs circuit, alongside hoons and dodgy builders. These topics are ideal because they make prime time audiences excited enough to shout at the tv, but not so excited that they walk out of the loungeroom to actually do something about the issue, thereby missing out on expensive insurance commercials.
Each wine story begins with a commonly-held position on wine, followed by some “new research” that allegedly disproves this position.
An “expert” is consulted by a field reporter to confirm that a glass of wine per day will improve your memory/slowly kill you/make you bald/make you hairy. The story ends with the field reporter saying ‘Cheers!’ to the camera and sipping a glass of wine. It’s very entertaining for people that can’t afford Netflix. Or people like Erica, whose DVD player is now full of sultanas.
“Is red wine healthy again yet?” asks Erica.
“It made you fat last August, but it was good for your heart in November; but then in February it gave you cancer. Does anybody know if it’s healthy again? Wait, here it comes, it’s on now”.
“Well, we all enjoy a glass of wine with dinner, but what is the real cost?” asked Tracy Grimshaw, to a breathless Erica, through a TV smeared with yoghurt.
“Just ask Janice Coulidge, who’s paid this dodgy builder over $15,000 for repairs to her wine cellar after it was destroyed by an out-of-control hoon”.
Unfortunately for the bottle of wine, which a devastated Erica was already holding, it’s fate was sealed when the dangerously sober mother stood in a bowl of warm 2-minute noodles which had inexplicably been left uneaten on the floor.
“Fuck it, where’s the corkscrew?”
