Rhymin and stealin

Coming up on her 84th birthday, Crystal experienced a revelation. It happened at the local winery where, in lieu of stomping grapes, she was knocking back a few free samples at the end of the tour. It was as if the roof crumbled around her, exposing the sky as the fraud it is, as if the clouds parted down the middle like a doughboy's haircut, allowing a thin spotlight of sunbeam to warm the stray wispy hairs sprouting from her forehead and lift her spirits like a speakeasy bar-back. The feeling was in turn sublime, genteel, and dolorous. Crystal saw, for the first time, that the daily necessity to eat and drink made man a born consumer, and that our shopping culture was an extension of that base impetus. She explained this to the man sitting beside her, who promptly convinced a group of Balkan tourists to step out of the vat and stomp his head instead.