Make Mine Mike

Out at a way cool watering hole with my boozy floozy fiancée and a couple of friends, we could see that sitting in a row at the bar wasn’t conducive to conversation. We spotted a table free. There were seven cushioned stools around this table -- on one end, three seats were taken up by hot-to-trot hoochie mamas, and a fourth was occupied by a purse belonging to one of these girls.

We asked the ladies if they would mind if we sat at the other end of the table, if the remaining seats were being saved for anyone. No, they said. But one of the girls said she wanted to use a stool for her purse. When Adelphia pointed out that that would leave one of us humans without a seat, the girl said, yeah, well, I’d prefer to keep my bag here.

This isn’t the first time this has happened at this joint. At another gathering, we were searching for seats for our hovering friends, and a woman at the adjoining table insisted that the empty chair next to her was for her friend, her purse acting as a seat-saver. After a half-hour of our friend standing around, and the woman’s imaginary friend never materializing, it was obvious her “friend” was nothing more than a cheap Louis-Vuitton knock-off.

I started to wonder if the bar would do better business if more chairs were filled by people with pocketbooks rather than the pocketbooks themselves. But why ask why? I went to take one of the stools we had vacated at the bar and add it to our table. The bartender told us we couldn’t remove the seats from the bar.

So that settled it. We told the women we were sitting there, that they’d have to find some other place to put their purses (like how ‘bout up yo ass, lady?) -- nicely, of course, and gathered around. The hoochies started to bitch under their breath to each other, which annoyed Adelphia even more.

“You’ll be blogging this, won’t you?” I said.

“Totally,” she said, trying to contain her exasperation at their inconsideration.

I tried to change the subject, talking about the cool music mix they had going on – seemed to be a combo of Sublime, Jimi Hendrix, Led Zeppelin…

Our friends had mixed feelings about the mix. Adelphia wasn’t a fan. The most recent song she had downloaded was “When I Grow Up”.

She suggested that the Pussycat Dolls song might be good running music for me. But I’m more of a classic rock kinda guy. “You know what was a surprisingly good addition to my iTunes? ‘Someone to Love’. It’s got a great rhythm.”

“Ugh, I hate Jefferson Airplane,” Adelphia said.

“Really?” My friend said. “Not even ‘White Rabbit’?”

Adelphia said no. I was surprised -- thought she’d like the Lewis Carrol references. Her literary tastes are very good; surely we’d agree about something musical…

“Now, ‘We Built This City’ -- that’s a great song. I love the Starship.”

She was serious. I just stared at her.

“You’ll be blogging this, won’t you?”

“Totally.”

Actually, I guess now I’m blogging both.