Bin there, done with that.

Lately, I’ve been buying my wine at Bin 201. Bin 201 sells only wine--no beer, no liquor--and they’re conveniently located just steps from Whole Foods Market. (Do I sound like a radio advertisement yet?) I do have an inclination that I should shop from the more local merchant--in our case, Dawson’s Liquors. Dawson’s is 3 stone throws from our house and carries an impressive collection of domestic and imported booze. But, you see, I think they hate me there.

It’s possible that my imagination is acting up, or that I’m simply neurotic, but I’m pretty sure I’ve earned--as far as the handful of men (plus the one short woman with heavy-framed spectacles and a permanent scowl) who run Dawson’s are concerned--some sort of uppity alpha she-wolf status.

It’s not something I do on purpose. In fact, I’m neither mean, uppity, rude, nor aggressive. But I do take Jeff almost everywhere I go. And I do guide him.

Jeff has an additional problem which complicates the others: He can only hear about half as well as most people. Here’s how this plays out in Dawson’s liquors: We walk in. A guy or two nods. I smile or say “hi.” Jeff stops, grins, and stands blocking the doorway and limiting another customer’s access to the checkout counter. I take his arm and say “this-a-way.” He forgets to look where I’m going the minute I let go, and heads down the Schnapps aisle. Then he realizes he’s lost me. I peek around an endcap (featuring the latest squeezings of some Hollywood director’s backyard vineyard,) and say, loudly enough for Jeff (and, incidentally, the rest of the store) to hear: “I’m right over here. Let me just grab a couple things.” I grab a couple things. Then it’s time to check out.

I place my two 750 ml selections on the counter, and indicate Jeff should do the same with his doublesize jug of Chardonnay. Then I pay, and the guy puts the bottles in a paper bag. Jeff holds out his hand for the bag. Sometimes I give it to him. Sometimes I say, “I’ve got it...can you get the door?” It all depends on the size and awkwardness of the paper bag. You see, there is a not-inconsequential chance that Jeff will a) grab the paper bag with one hand, effecting an immediate rip, or b) pick the bag up upside down. (The time this happened, remarkably only one bottle of the 4 that tumbled onto our brick walkway was impaired, and it was just a chink out of the screw cap. Which meant we opened that bottle right away.) But the take-home point is that people in public, such as the Dawson’s guys, observe a dynamic between Jeff and me that is a little strange if you don’t know he’s impaired. And I believe that they have concluded, despite the fact that I am neither mean nor belittling, that there’s something wrong with this picture. It’s just that they’ve guessed wrong about what the wrong thing is.

Once, I had to get Jeff to sign a state tax refund check, so that we could deposit it into a bank account that has only my name on it. So, he and I were standing on our side of the teller window, and I was trying to point to where, on the back of the check, he should endorse. As his pen tried several times to touch down in random places, I’d redirect him to the signature line. Task accomplished. Next day, my bro-in-law Gordon went to the bank. Same teller. She sees Gordon often, and mentioned that she saw his brother yesterday. Then she wondered aloud, whether his sister-in-law (aka me) is “a little overbearing.” (Gordon has dealt with this himself. He recalls helping Jeff buy girl scout cookies once by taking the money Jeff was struggling to count, and handing the right amount to the cookie mom, while she looked at him “like he had two heads.”) So Gordon chuckled and said, “Let me guess...he needed to sign in a specific place, and she was trying to help him?” Right. Gordon explained things to the teller, who has been very sweet to me ever since.

But nobody, apparently, has had an opportunity to explain things to the men who work at Dawson’s Liquors, and at least a couple of them really don’t like women who are in charge. Even reasonably pleasant ones. It’s a horrible vibe I get from them.

But not in Bin 201. At Bin 201, there are always women salespeople, they always deal directly with me, showing no sign that they find it wrong or odd that I’m taking charge, and they’re always very pleasant. It’s local enough.