"So I'm Sittin' In This Bar..." Vol. I

In the past, I’ve written essays on the same subject, such as television. In fact, the last one I wrote only generated one comment, and it was from a relative who told me I needed to get a life. Thanks. Anyway, I decided to start another series, an idea I’ve been entertaining, but have never actually played with. I want to welcome you to my bar stories. I’m going to relate some of the things that I’ve seen in bars from all over the world. Some are recent and some are decades old. I hope you find them interesting.

So I’m sittin’ in this bar in Baltimore. I was in town for a week for work with several other people, and I wasn’t driving the car, and that sucks. If you’ve ever been traveling with a group, you know what I mean. Anyway, one of the guys who had been there before had a few places he wanted to show me, and this was one of them. I’ve been in a lot of bars. I mean, a lot, but I have never been in one like this. It was an old building. It was a banquet hall on one side and a tavern on the other. I noticed the sign when we pulled in the parking lot. It said “Welcome Class of 49”. Really. Anyway, we went in the tavern side and right into what might as well have been “The Shining”. The walls were cream colored and lit entirely with recessed lights, the kind where the lights are hidden by plaster balcony-looking soffits that spanned every wall a foot or so below the ceiling. In every corner, there was a large faux marble, urn-shaped planter with fake red flowers spilling out of it. There was a large U-shaped bar and an area at the bottom of the U that was behind us. It had four or five booths and as many tables, all covered with lace tablecloths. All the tables were populated with senior citizens dining quietly. In fact, it was the quietest bar I’ve ever been in. We sat at the bar and waited for the bartender, who had make up on like Morticia Addams and was dressed like Dean Martin, complete with an impossibly white shirt and a black bow tie and a black vest. She was young, but had a drastic, old lady hairdo stretched into a little bun. It was pulled back so tight on her head it made my teeth hurt. There were two large flat screen TVs behind her with no volume. When I ordered my drink every person in the room could hear it. I half expected to see a sardonic Jack Nicholson behind her shoulder raising a glass as the skin on his face fell off. I made some small talk with the guys I was with, and didn’t show my fear. They had a KENO game going and I spent three dollars for three games every three minutes so I could concentrate on the monitor and not have to look at the diners who were, I was sure, tossing bones on their plates that weren’t chicken. I actually won a dollar back and managed to finish my drink without any social interaction at all. I looked at the guys I was with who had the “another?” look and I said, “Nope, I’m tired, let’s go,” and we left. I didn’t feel safe until we got back out into the sunlight. As we walked to the car, we passed the entrance to the banquet hall where two elderly people were walking down the cement stairs. I said “Hello” as I passed and they said nothing. Yup. Got out of there before the sun went down and the monsters came out.

So I’m sittin’ in this bar in Holland, Michigan. If you’ve ever visited there, you know it’s a quaint, touristy place. If you’ve ever lived there you know it’s a haven for religious weirdoes who (at the time) decided it was necessary to have a law against mowing your lawn on Sunday. Really. Anyway, I’m sitting at the bar when this young girl walks in with a baby in a car seat, sits next to me and orders a rum & coke. She didn’t look old enough to drink, let alone have a kid, but there she was. The kid with the kid had phenomenal tits, so I overlooked her obvious stupidity. She was wearing a V-neck shirt with laces that were literally bursting. For one brief moment, I was jealous of the infant. If she was my mother, I’d breast feed until I was 20. Anyway, as is my usual custom, I waited for her to start talking to me, and of course, she did. We exchanged mild pleasantries and then she started talking about…something, but I don’t remember what it was. Call me a chauvinist, but I was not hearing a word she was saying. I “uh-huhed” when I was supposed to and it lasted for a while, but eventually, abruptly, I realized it was my turn to speak and I hadn’t been listening. Because I was an honest, non-thinking-ahead sort of fellow, I blurted out exactly what I was thinking. I said, “I’m sorry, I wasn’t listening. I was staring at your chest.” And just like that, she slapped me. The bartender looked over at us. I set my drink down and said, “Listen, Missy. If you walk with a neon sign around your neck that says ‘Don’t Look At This Sign,’ you’d better not be surprised when someone does.” She didn’t get it, but I had stopped listening again. She started calling me a pervert or something and I looked at the bartender, fully expecting to explain myself, but the bartender scooted up to where we were and put her finger in the busty girl’s face and told her to leave. Now. The girl got up, bitching, obviously angry, and I couldn’t help but notice how great her tits looked, shaking as she was fumbling with her purse and her baby. She stormed out the door and the bartender bought me a drink for my trouble. Ain’t life grand?

Stay tuned for more bar stories. I’ve been meaning to write more often and I will. You’ll have to pardon me when it’s fluffy stuff like this, but these are stories I enjoy telling.