I think I have brain damage. Probably a genetic thing. I stopped just now at the Giant Beagle supermarket after dropping the boys at summer camp. I selected some wilted vegetables, some bleached-flour breads, and a strange-looking pomegranite iced tea. Of course, I had to visit the wine section -- I wanted to find Smoking Loon, a selection I tried at Guido's last week. They had the Syrah and the Pinot Noir. I took the latter, mainly because when I read the words "pinot noir" I think of my brother-in-law Cowboy Joe when he brought out a bottle of the stuff one night and declared it an especially good because "it's a hard grape." (We had already finished a jug of a cheap red wine that night -- so the "hard grape" comment seemed to make sense.)

I put the bottle in my shopping cart and said aloud the obligatory "it's a hard grape." But as I walked away I noticed that I also said something else. Not far from the Smoking Loon was a bottle of Fish Eye chardonnay, not a bad little white wine. I've had it before, twice in the last few months. As my gaze passed the bottle I found myself doing exactly what I had done every single time I poured a glass of the stuff: I'd say aloud slowly and tauntingly fish-eeeeyyyyeeee while closing one eye and leaning forward with the other, trying to open it wide enough to make it bug out of my head.

Yeah, I know: it's not particularly funny. But I don't suppose I do it for the benefit of anyone's entertainment... because today I was by myself in a supermarket... saying that out loud... to no one in particular... And I don't know why!

Is my brain really doing this? Or is it more of a reflex response processed somewhere along the brain stem? If my brain were removed completely from my skull would I still be able to steer my car safely along the FDR Drive, the part under the apartments? Would overly-loud motorcyclists earn the proper Zappa-esque admonition to "Blow it out your ass, motorcycle man!"? Would I respond appropriately to the signpost outside Co-op City -- the big one on the Hutchinson River Parkway that commands drivers to "Draw Bridge"?