If You Bring A Bottle Of Booze To A Party Today, Go Ahead And Take It Home

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Happy Fourth of July, you cheap bastards. Or, as it turns out, you (mostly) generous gift-givers. I posed this question on Twitter last night and as of this writing, 35,000 people weighed in: If you bring a bottle of wine to someone's dinner party, but nobody drinks it, can you bring it home? 

Let's expand from wine, too. Say you bring some tasty Pirate Water or a twelve-pack of Big Deal Brewing original golden ale from the Spittin' Chiclets crew. If the party you deliver them to doesn't consume the gift, or perhaps has a couple but leaves a few at the bottom of the box, is it acceptable to bring them home? 

65% say no. 35% say yes. Put me down for a yes. 

We host people frequently. Big hosts. You get to an age where the idea of going anywhere at all feels more challenging than sweeping the floor, skinning a couple carrots, and whipping up some hummus. Give me HOME at the end of a night over having to say goodbye to everyone and PRAYING you don't have to deal with a couple desperate clingers who try to get you to stay for one more drink. The best part of hosting is… you're already home. I'll clean the kitchen and fluff the couch over a long, carsickness-inducing Uber every single day. 

One of the major downsides of hosting? Trying to find a place in our apartment for the 43 loose Coronas that will sit at room temperature until the next party. Is there any room for them on the shelf, perhaps behind the 19 assorted White Claws? Nope, no space. Maybe we can put the under the bed? Ah shoot, that's already slammed with a bottle of Proper Twelve, New Amsterdam, some weird banana flavored rum, and the $24 tequila we'll use to clean wounds on the dogs' necks when they come home from the dog park on the wrong side of town. 

All "gifts" from previous gatherings. All taking up space. 

See, we don't exactly drink rum on our own time. A glass of cheap tequila isn't the perfect compliment to my wife's halibut recipe on a Tuesday. And people rarely bring a super nice bottle of wine to a party since it's a party and nobody will know/care if they're drinking $10 or $100 wine. So we're rarely, if ever, left with a bottle of something we'd actually enjoy on our own. 

Please, take your bog water "gift" with you. Better yet, bring something you'll FINISH yourself.