SELLA DORE: Whose Cellar Door

From the unpublished book "SELLA DORE: Mysteries of Many Kinds" by A.S. Kaswell, as transcribed by Marc Abrahams

[Read the INTRODUCTION to the series “SELLA DORE: Mysteries of Many Kinds”]

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In the Closet

"The business use of celebrity is aggressive and pernicious," Sella Dore remarked, presciently.

Sella and I were sharing yet another of our daily multiple rounds of tea — black tea, from teabags, the only kind of tea Sella wholly approves of, it being of good value and reliable — when there came a banging at the office door, augmented by cheery burbling voices.

The door opened, and in came a man from the corridor. A wine bottle adorned each of his pair of outstretched hands. A shiny suit adorned his body. A smile enwrapped his head.

"G'day, mate! G'day, mate! I have a problem — and you are going to solve it for me! Yes, you, Sella Dore! You! None other! G'day, mate!"

Ten shiny-clad companions flew into the room with him — four short-skirted women, four industrial-body-built, shiny tee-shirted men, and two individuals of nonstandard shiny manufacture. All ten of these slicksters waved wine bottles.

Vibrated. They spewed cheer. They repeatedly chanted: "Sella Dore! Sella Dore! Sella Dore!" and “so on". (One of them shouted "and so on" after each time the others chanted "Sella Dore! Sella Dore! Sella Dore!")

They kept it up for a good and then no longer good long time. I could see that Sella decided to wait them out. Eventually most of the cheer drained out of the cheering, and the noise stopped.

" 'G'day?' " apprised Sella, flatly. "And 'mate'? It sounds like you are trying to sound like you are Australian, and it sounds to me like you are not."

"That's right, mate!" cheered the Man in the Suit, "but I embody the spirit of Australian enterprise!" The Ten Companions cheered, too. Then they did another round of the "Sella Dore! (and so on)" cheer.

Sella leaned back in her chair, smoothed the lapels of her hunter-green housecoat, and smiled a steely smile. "This is my assistant, Kaswell," she said, indicating me.

"You may have noticed, on Kaswell's desk, a stainless steel electric tea kettle. A fine one. This kettle raises water to a temperature at which it boils. One hundred degrees celsius at sea level, 212 degrees Fahrenheit, 373 Kelvin. If you, any of you, persist, I will instruct Kaswell to use that kettle and some water, to kindly help bring your excitement, and you, to a boil. But I suggest that you, instead, cool your unexplained enthusiasm."

"No worries, mate! Ripper!" cheered the Man in the Suit. "Fair dinkum!”

"Can it," I told the Man in the Suit. "You think Sella's joking about the hot water. She's not. The kettle is full of water. All of you: Watch my hand. Right now. You see me pressing the ON switch. This is a really good electric kettle. It boils water in no time. It's very full. When guests are involved, Sella wants me to be generous when I pour."

Sella glared at the Man in the Suit, and said, "Now, invading stranger. Tell me. Who are you? What do you want?"

"My name is Freddie Jaylen!" he said. "You may have heard of me!"

Then, seeing the absence of a look on Sella's face, he said, "Or maybe not. I'm Freddie Jaylen! I make marketing magic happen!"

One feature of our electric kettle is that, as the water starts to boil, it emanates an impressively loud rumble, rumble, rumbling. As was happening now.

Freddie Jaylen heard the kettle, and looked at it. Then he looked at the incipient hard smiles on Sella's face and on mine.

The kettle, channeling its inner river-rapids spirit, raised and quickened its voice. In response, Freddie Jaylen quickened and raised his.

"Show Sella the report!" he shouted at his tagalong companions. "Show Sella the report!"

Two of the tee-shirted men rushedly held up a large banner, a reproduction of a colorful page from an old (September 2014, to be specific) issue of a magazine called *Grapegrower & Winemaker*. It pictured three shelves loaded with wine bottles, with the headline "The Cellar Door: Cornerstone of the direct-to-consumer marketing channel".

The kettle's acoustical rough-and-tumble grew louder.

Freddie Jaylen shouted to Sella: "This is all about wine cellars! How to go about the marketing visits to wine cellars! Australian wine cellars!"

The kettle's river-over-rocks tumult grew louder still.

Freddie Jaylen, panicking, shouted: "Sella Dore! Sella Dore! I am going to persuade the Australian wine industry to hire me to take them to new heights! You are the marketing missing link! Sella Dore! Sella Dore!"

The kettle found its full, dam-about-to-burst voice.

"Sella Dore!" Freddie Jaylen shouted. "They said they would hire me if I found a new face for their Cellar Door marketing campaign! You — Sella Dore! — are the prefect fresh face! You and your famous name! Sella Dore! Australia needs to hire me, to hire you, to help them! Success to us all! Sella Dore forever!

The ten goofballs waived their wine bottles, and cheered. And one of them said "And so on."

Sella gestured me to pick up the boiling kettle, and water our guests.

As I reached for the teapot, Sella's smile, now well past incipient, hardened to diamond level.

I picked up the loud-growling electric teapot, and marched toward Freddie Jaylen.

Whooooooooosh!