Okay, Jimshaw worked a dog in here so . . .

Best Gift Ever:



The backstory is I am working back in '06 (as an airline ticket agent) at that awful MIA place, in uniform but on a break and walking past the long TSA line when a guy frantically approaches me and says that he's late for his Las Vegas flight and he has a bottle of Champagne in his bag and that they won't let him through with this liquid. I give him the standard response: He can check it as baggage but he'll miss his flight and can go on the next one (six hours later.) He pulls out the bottle and considers the situation, then hands it to me and says take it and enjoy it, and he runs back to the security checkpoint. Obviously whoever was to drink it with him in Vegas was worth more than what they were to drink, and obviously the urge that makes him give it to me isn't benevolence.

But I realize what I have in my hand is good stuff, so I google the French Champagne house and vintage date ('96.) Two NY online stores are selling it for $695 a bottle.

In '08 I drink it with friends on the night I retire and the label is now a refrigerator magnet (scanned above) to remember that happy moment.