A Valentine's Story

Having grown up in Southern California, moving to Estonia caused a little bit of culture shock. For example, where’s the sun?

But mostly it was the little things, like that you can’t buy alcohol between 10pm and 10am. This struck me as a little bit odd but I didn’t really think it would affect me. Who really needs to buy alcohol before 10am?

Turns out, me! There I was standing at the Rimi check-out with the young woman unable to swipe my groceries, telling me, “it’s ten minutes until ten; do you think you can wait that long?”

Yes, of course I can! I’m not having an alcohol emergency. I just forgot about the time.

Then there’s the 24-hour shop, where I popped in after dinner one night for a bottle of wine. And they were like, no. Yes, we are open twenty-four hours a day but no, we do not sell alcohol at night.

I don’t understand. What’s the point? What is it that people want to buy at two am that can’t wait until morning. Celery?

The only thing I could come up with was vampires. “I must have sunscreen before the sun comes up!” Which…it’s Estonia. You’ll be OK. You have at least three weeks.

But Estonians do try to take the problem of alcohol emergencies very seriously.

Cliff and I had been in Estonia for about a month. It wasn’t Valentines Day, I don’t think, but it was February, it was at least Valentines-adjacent. Cliff said to me, “Hey, Sylvia, why don’t you pop by the shop and get a bottle of vodka for tonight? We can watch telly and drink it cold and maybe fall asleep on the sofa.”

And when you’ve been with someone for twenty-five years, that’s a romantic overture. It was the best Valentine’s offer that I was going to get.

I check the time, and it was 11:00, so that’s fine. I go to the shop and, I hadn’t been in Estonia very long so I was completely overwhelmed by all the different vodkas available. I wander around the alcohol section looking at all the different options. There’s a burly man there as security who is watching me, arm crossed against his chest. So I end up doing that awkward thing where I’m trying to be very deliberate about my movements, carefully pulling each bottle out and looking at it and putting it back.

I find an Estonian vodka called Moe, which must be like Moët Chandon, right? It must be the champagne of vodkas. It’ll be perfect.

The burly man steps towards me and I take the bottle and hold it up with a smile, trying to signal that I’ve made my choice and now I am going to pay for it.

And he shakes his head, no.

He says something in Estonian or Russian or maybe both, all I knew was that I didn’t understand a word of it. So I put on my best Baywatch smile and say, “English?”

He frowns and thinks for a moment and says, “Not cold?”

Now, I’m completely appropriately dressed for the February weather and actually the shop is a bit overheated. So I say, “No, thank you for asking, I’m not cold.”

He pauses and then points at the bottle and says it again. “Not cold.”

He means the Moe vodka, apparently this vodka is not meant to be drunk cold. Which, I’m not sure if I’m going to follow his advice, because I love ice-cold vodka, but I appreciate that he’s trying to be helpful. “Right, I won’t drink it cold. Thank you for telling me.”

But he’s blocking me from leaving and he has an intense look of concentration on his face, clearly struggling to remember the English they taught him in school twenty years ago which he hasn’t needed to use since. He manages his first full sentence.

“It’s not cold.” Then he puts his hand on my arm and leads me deeper into the alcohol section. “This,” he says, “is cold.” And he shows me a vodka fridge. I’ve never seen such a thing in my life. It’s amazing! And we both stand there for a moment, staring at the vodka fridge in appreciation.

But! There was no Moe in the fridge and I have already got my heart set on the champagne vodka. I point at the bottle and then point at the fridge and say “But this one isn’t in there.”

He agrees; it is not. “You should get different one.”

Now, it’s 11 in the morning. We’re planning a quiet evening in pyjamas. I do not actually need pre-chilled vodka. “I think I’ll be fine,” I say. “It’s for tonight,” I say. “I’ll put it in the freezer,” I say.

He looks very dubious about this. By now, I’m clutching the bottle of vodka like he might take it away from me. I look, in fact, like I am having an alcohol emergency.

So I turn my back on him and rush to the check-out so I can get my vodka. The woman at the check out looks at me and then the bottle and then at me.

“I’m not drinking this right now,” I announce in an over loud voice. As if she cares.

She says “OK” in a slow voice and rings up the purchase but she’s clearly decided that I’m already drunk and tells me very carefully how much and do I need a bag?

“No, I don’t need a bag.” I can feel them both watching me as I walk out, hugging my vodka and trying not to slip on the icy February sidewalks.

Once back at the apartment, I dump the vodka and grab my iPad and start writing this down. Because it’s hilarious, right? I’ve just been accused of day-drinking at my local shop.

Cliff looks at me and says “What are you doing? Why is the vodka not in the freezer?”

All the words come out at once. “I need to write this down first. Did you know that you could buy it cold? Except I couldn’t. But there’s plenty of time. It’s just like champagne.”

And he looks at me and — another way that you could tell that we’d been together for twenty-five years is that he didn’t ask any more questions. He just took the vodka away from me and put it in the freezer.