Does your life lack unrestrained indulgence?  Do you gaze wistfully at people with silk sheets, wine cellars, and a suspiciously large collection of imported cheeses?  Well then, dear reader, it’s time to add the word “sybaritic” t your vocabulary arsenal.  Not because it will fix your life, but because it’ll make you sound sexier than that guy at the party who can’t shut up about his artisanal olives.  Dig:
Sybaritic (adj):  a love for sensual luxury or pleasure. Picture decadent feasts, velvet robes, and candlelight champagne baths.
Imagine someone lounging in an infinity pool atop a private  villa, sipping champagne, while a butler fans them with palm leaves.  That’s sybaritic.  Now imagine the rest of us eating instant ramen while staring at an Amazon cart full of shit we can’t afford.  That’s…well, not sybaritic.
This gloriously decadent word comes all the way from Sybaris, an ancient Greek city in southern Italy whose inhabitants were famous for living it up like rock stars in toga form.  They were all about good food, good wine, and the general art of treating yoself.  Tragically, the city was eventually destroyed by their very, very un-chill neighbors.  But did they die with regrets?  Probably not.  They were too busy eating grapes off a golden platter.

Last Friday night, my friend Miranda invited me to a “wine and charcuterie experience” at her downtown loft.  Naturally, I assumed this was code for “two bottles of Yellow Tail and a block of sweaty cheddar.”  I wasn’t ready for what greeted me when I stepped through the door.
Imagine chandeliers dripping with crystals (real, not Ikea).  A man in a bowler hat playing the violin for no apparent reason.  Trays of hors d’oeuvres I couldn’t pronounce (am I supposed to eat caviar with my fingers, or will I get arrested?).   Every square inch screamed, “Welcome to a lifestyle you will probably never be able to afford.
I should have bowed out gracefully and gone home to Netflix and stale pretzels, but no.  Like an idiot, I stayed.  By my fourth glass of fancy red with a name longer than my rent contract, I was feeling great.  Until, of course, I made the questionable decision to sit on the Moroccan couch.  You know, the $10,000 centerpiece that you look at but don’t touch?  Yeah, I touched it – with a glass of Malbec in hand.  One clumsy elbow later, there was a rather artistic wine stain sprawling across the pristine fabric.  Miranda’s jaw dropped so hard, I thought it might crack on the marble floor.  “Are you…serious right now?” she hissed, her voice thick with barely suppressed rage.
“What can I say?” I slurred with a self-deprecating shrug.  “The sybaritic life style may not be for me.”
She did not laugh.
The moral is, of course, that some of us are meant for a world of wine and luxury, and some of us should just stick to boxed rosé and Netflix.  Know your limits, dear reader, and keep your accidental chaos away from $10K couches.

N.P.: “Captain Love” – The Winery Dogs