A gal walked into a bar.
A friend recently complained that my posts are too depressing; write something funny he suggested. A gal walked into a bar. All I need now is a duck or a rabbi and a priest, and I'm onto something.
Or maybe someone from the "Republican Establishment?" Yesterday I was at least a little amused when I listened to Mitch McConnell explaining the "principle" behind not giving the POTUS SCOTUS nominee a chance. My personal favorite: even the New York Times reported this nomination would move the Court to the left (duh!), which not only makes the NRA so angry it wants to shoot someone but is also just wrong because, darn it, the royal GOP "we" wants it to move -- or stay -- to the right. Close second favorite: this could mean a pinko-liberal oops I meant to say leftward leaning Court for a quarter century or more.
I did some math/brain exercises. The nominee is 62. In twenty-five years he will be 87. Young, compared to Justice Ginsburg, who will be 105. In twenty-five years, Justice Kagan, the youngest member of the current Court, will be 80. Half of them will be wearing diapers. The other half will be too busy playing shuffle board in Boca to make any decisions at all. If McConnell is right, there will be far bigger problems on the High Court than incontinence and a shift to the left.
A gal walked into a bar. This gal walked into a bar. A bar in the West Loop, which has morphed from a dreary neighborhood of warehouses into the latest hot spot for Chicagoans in their twenties. I walked in to pick up some pizza for dinner with friends. I walked out wondering when everyone in the world became younger than I am.
My adulthood began in Chicago.
I was in my twenties, off my parents' dime (and on their shit list), a plane ride away from all that was familiar. I was unaccustomed to the odd mix of urban accessibility to restaurants and shops and quasi suburban style housing that offered ample space and even an occasional patch of green. Chicago has always seemed the perfect place to be twenty-something. When I moved here, I don't remember noticing anybody who wasn't twenty-something. A quarter century later (more or less), I'm a lot older, but the twenty-something population in trendy neighborhoods in Chicago remains, seemingly unchanged.
This gal walked into a bar, and, within minutes, unbeknownst to her, a guy walked into the same bar. From where I stood, I was all the way to the right, and he was all the way to the left. With a tightly packed row of twenty-somethings between us, we did not notice each other. Bookending the bar, we were both there to pick up the same pizzas. It was my friend's husband; they had not gotten my text, had no idea I would be there. Not knowing what name they had used, I had only identified the pizza by its ingredients, which was close enough until "the name" showed up.
I watched from the far right as the bartender disappeared into the kitchen and emerged holding two pizza boxes. I began to salivate, as I always do when things are going my way. I watched as he suddenly paused, listened to something or someone, and disappeared back into the kitchen. He emerged without the pizza. He went to the register, right smack in the middle of the bar, and looked puzzled. I was puzzled. But I was feeling invisible in the land of twenty-somethings, so I decided to be patient.
Finally, he came over to me, apologized, offered me my money back but no pizza. "The name" trumped a vague identification of possible ingredients. The pizzas -- and the bill -- would be shifting to the left. It never occurred to him that the guy on the left and the gal on the right might have been searching for the exact same thing. I peered down toward the other end of the bar, waved to the guy trying to claim my pizzas, a guy I have known for over a quarter century. I have known him since we were not much older than all the twenty-somethings at the bar, as unaware of the drama surrounding them as we were of each other.
The guy and the gal walked out of the bar with two pizzas -- one veggie, one meat. Okay, not all that funny, but at least a happy ending.
This gal walked into a bar, and, within minutes, unbeknownst to her, a guy walked into the same bar. From where I stood, I was all the way to the right, and he was all the way to the left. With a tightly packed row of twenty-somethings between us, we did not notice each other. Bookending the bar, we were both there to pick up the same pizzas. It was my friend's husband; they had not gotten my text, had no idea I would be there. Not knowing what name they had used, I had only identified the pizza by its ingredients, which was close enough until "the name" showed up.
I watched from the far right as the bartender disappeared into the kitchen and emerged holding two pizza boxes. I began to salivate, as I always do when things are going my way. I watched as he suddenly paused, listened to something or someone, and disappeared back into the kitchen. He emerged without the pizza. He went to the register, right smack in the middle of the bar, and looked puzzled. I was puzzled. But I was feeling invisible in the land of twenty-somethings, so I decided to be patient.
Finally, he came over to me, apologized, offered me my money back but no pizza. "The name" trumped a vague identification of possible ingredients. The pizzas -- and the bill -- would be shifting to the left. It never occurred to him that the guy on the left and the gal on the right might have been searching for the exact same thing. I peered down toward the other end of the bar, waved to the guy trying to claim my pizzas, a guy I have known for over a quarter century. I have known him since we were not much older than all the twenty-somethings at the bar, as unaware of the drama surrounding them as we were of each other.
The guy and the gal walked out of the bar with two pizzas -- one veggie, one meat. Okay, not all that funny, but at least a happy ending.
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