Preface: If you don’t watch Scandal, you probably won’t get this. And if you don’t watch Scandal, I DEMAND you go to Netflix and watch it right now. See you in three days. That should be a sufficient amount of time to let you binge.

Have you ever had a really bad day, like epically bad so much that you just want to dive into your most beloved, ragged pair of jammies, pour yourself a glass of wine (by glass of wine I mean bottle), and cry a little (and by cry a little I mean a lot) on your couch with your cat? We’ve ALL been there, give or take. And until recently, the thought of that was a little sad, right? Drinking wine. Alone. With your cat. Replaying the heinous day in your head over-and-over again. When I pull myself out of said emotional hole I usually cringe thinking about partaking in such behavior … but, you know, sometimes it’s necessary.

Thanks to Olivia Pope, better known as Kerry Washington on the street, though, that idea no longer sounds pathetic, weak, or silly. Because NOTHING Olivia Pope does is silly or pathetic, am I right?

My friends, I call this Pope-ing. Much like coping … except Pope-ing … get it? Ehh?! It is like the chicer version of what I just described above. How do you Pope, you ask?

1. Go home and get into your all white or cream cashmere jammies

2. Make sure your hair is perfectly quaffed

3. Go to your kitchen and poor yourself a rather large glass of red

4. Turn on MSNBC, CNN, Fox News … whatever you fancy

5. Curl up on your white couch with said glass of red and your cellular device

6. Chug said glass of red

7. Wait for insanely handsome suitor to knock on your door

8. Converse with suitor while sitting in front of your coffee table with your legs crossed, drinking, and starring into space

9. Kick him out

10. Pour more wine

For a while I never realized how she wore all white, and how her apartment was all white, drank copious amounts of red wine, and never got a drop of it anywhere. Me, well, I would be a hot mess. But last week, after having a truly heinous day, I sat down on my couch in something besides my hole-ridden, bleached stained jammies, enjoyed a glass of wine, and felt like Olivia Pope, obviously the abridged version of the above steps. And it made me feel slightly better.

Olivia Pope is a bad ass woman. She don’t take no shit from no one. Clearly you don’t have to follow the above steps verbatim, BUT if you embody what Olivia Pope is all about while sipping your vino on your couch, pondering what went wrong … you may just turn into the gladiator that you need to be.

Below is me Pope-ing. Sorry, I’m really just not a red wine drinker … yet.