I used to think those biorhythm charts were bunk but I think about that when I have a great Monday and a terrible Wednesday.
You remember biorhythms, right? Basically, you put in your birthday and then find today’s date. It shows a scale of Physical, Emotional and Intellectual well-being. I don’t know, maybe they are bunk.
I was at home Saturday and just got ensconced with my dinner. The phone rings. I have to break out of my little mold to answer the phone. It was my sister “Hey, where are you?”
“Home”, I say.
“What are you doing?” she asks.
“Eating dinner,” I reply.
“Oh”, she starts “when you’re done with dinner, how’d you like to have a drink with your nieces and nephews – and your sister?”
We had a really nice time sitting around drinking and laughing. It’s kind of strange that my nieces and nephews are old enough to drink. I barely feel like I’m old enough to drink. My sister tells me, at some point, that a few people from the family are going to breakfast next morning. I love me some breakfast.
Anyhow, while I’m sitting there I get a (drunken) message from A-girl and L2. They’re out partying and wonder if I’d like to join them. I tell them what I’m doing and they ask that I meet them at this bar – a total ‘biker’ bar – when I’m done.
By the time I get there the place is closing down. It’s around 11:00pm and people are flooding the parking lots. A-girl tells me she’s there with some friends (who are driving her, thankfully) and then tells me to follow them to the next place we’re going. Fine, I’m along for the ride.
In the middle of all this, my sister calls and asks me if I have Mom and Dad’s house key. “Not with me” I tell her. My niece, who is in from out of town is staying with my parents while she’s here. Mom and Dad are down for the night (it’s around 11:30pm by now) and she doesn’t want to wake them just to get in. Anyhow, it turns out she finds her key and everything is good. During the conversation numerous motorcycles are roaring away and I can barely hear a thing my sister is saying.
So A-girl shows up and tells me to follow a Chrysler van that her friends are driving. I can see everyone heading for a vehicle but there’s so much traffic in the way I can’t tell which vehicle they get into. I see a mini-van pull away and hope that’s them.
I called L2 and said “is that you in front of me?” She answers in the affirmative but I’m still not comfortable it’s them in front of me – especially since it’s a Nissan.
So the caravan is under way and there are a couple of U-turns involved. Now I’m really wondering if I’m following the right van and it eventually turns out that I am. We finally arrive at this club that no one has ever been to.
We walk in to this small club and run smack into one of my all-time pet peeves… allow me to digress. We’re in a small club with tile flooring and hardwood everywhere else. There is a 3-piece band with their amps cranked to “11”. It’s so loud that the glasses are shaking on the tables. They could turn the volume down by half and it would still be considered loud. I don’t understand why bands do this. Everyone is yelling at the top of their lungs and I still cannot hear all of what’s being said.
So the band takes a break and I’m thinking, “Yes, I’ll be able to hear conversations again”. There’s about a half a beat before the DJ cranks up the hip-hop to “11”. I’m looking around and there are 2 black guys in the corner of the bar having their drinks. Everyone else is white and looks like they should be golfing. Now, I’m not a racist but hip-hop is generally thought to be the black person’s music. I don’t have a problem with the genre; I have a problem with the total volume of the music and the fact that it’s not even the ‘good’ hip-hop music.
To be fair, I would not expect to hear Willie Nelson in a predominantly black club. This is not really what I wanted to talk about. Quick recap: I’ve gone from a family event, to a biker bar, to a club that’s playing loud music.
Wait, it gets better.
So the band comes back, plays three incredibly loud songs and then they’re gone. By this time (2:00am) the bar is closing. “You don’t have to go home but you can’t stay here”. So everyone pours back out into the parking lot and someone mentions going to this, uh… “adult” toy shop that’s right down the street. Okay, I’ve heard stories about this place – lets go see what the fuss is about.
We pull up and it’s this shop in a strip mall (no pun intended) that has 3 or 4 other shops. We walk in and they ask to see ID’s. Fine, ID check complete. We walk through this door and the place is clean and well lit. It’s sort of like a record store where all the records are magazines and all the accessories are… well, accessories.
Now I’m strolling around like a well-informed consumer (“Look at this -- $14 for a 10-inch and $20 for a 12-inch. That’s $6 for an extra 2 inches of dildo”) and the people I’m with are laughing at almost everything. I’m not sure if it was the alcohol talking or just the level of maturity. I think it was a bit of a buzz-kill for them that I wasn’t shocked by anything I found.
L2 had found this ‘appliance’ and looked like she was going to purchase it. “I don’t know,” she says. “If you really want it,” I say “I’ll buy it for you”. She laughs a bit, looks at it and says, “I don’t know” a couple more times. Long story short: we end up not buying it.
We left there pretty quickly (I thought). L2 had to pee like a racehorse but they didn’t have a public bathroom so she went out by the dumpster on the side of the building. If I had known what they were doing I would have gone to watch.
We all said our ‘good nights’ and drove away. I’m heading back to my house and I’m pretty sure I know which way to go. I find my road and I start heading down it. I just happened to look down at the gas gauge and I’m running pretty low. I need to find a gas station quick.
So I’m trucking down the road and I notice that the streetlights start disappearing. I notice things don’t look like they should. I notice there’s no place to turn around. I’m still pretty sure I know where I’m going. I pass by a sign and I’m still on the right road.
I turn off on another road – Hey, I’m familiar with the name of this road. I still don’t see anything familiar… let me double back and get on the original road I was on. Meanwhile the gas is disappearing faster than I can keep up with. I’m driving down long dark roads with very little gas. I pull off to the side and see if A-girl can help. My cell phone has NO reception. I drive a little further ahead and I see a sign “State Line – 6 miles”. Ooops!
I make another U-turn and headed back to where I came from. Finally I get to a 4-way intersection and have gotten so turned around that I don’t know which way I came from last. I spy a gas station not far from the intersection.
I get some gas and ask the cute little blonde behind the counter which way I need to go. (See, men CAN ask for directions).
Turns out I was on the right road just generally headed in the wrong direction. A mile or two down the road I see some familiar sights and make it home.
So the next morning (Father’s Day) comes entirely too early. With my misguided journey last night, it got me home and asleep much later than I would have preferred. Now I’m at the place we’re having breakfast and the entire population of the city has turned out. But I don’t see my parents or my sister there.
Eventually my niece shows up and we wait. And wait. And wait. Everyone else shows up and we wait. And wait. And wait. We waited an hour just to be seated. This is the kind of place where you can generally walk in and get a table as soon as you step in.
We wait another half hour before food arrives. By this time I’m so hungry I could eat the table. We had no time to digest our food because so many other people were waiting we had to give up the table. Breakfast was awesome, though.
Oh, yea – biorhythms…
You remember biorhythms, right? Basically, you put in your birthday and then find today’s date. It shows a scale of Physical, Emotional and Intellectual well-being. I don’t know, maybe they are bunk.
I was at home Saturday and just got ensconced with my dinner. The phone rings. I have to break out of my little mold to answer the phone. It was my sister “Hey, where are you?”
“Home”, I say.
“What are you doing?” she asks.
“Eating dinner,” I reply.
“Oh”, she starts “when you’re done with dinner, how’d you like to have a drink with your nieces and nephews – and your sister?”
We had a really nice time sitting around drinking and laughing. It’s kind of strange that my nieces and nephews are old enough to drink. I barely feel like I’m old enough to drink. My sister tells me, at some point, that a few people from the family are going to breakfast next morning. I love me some breakfast.
Anyhow, while I’m sitting there I get a (drunken) message from A-girl and L2. They’re out partying and wonder if I’d like to join them. I tell them what I’m doing and they ask that I meet them at this bar – a total ‘biker’ bar – when I’m done.
By the time I get there the place is closing down. It’s around 11:00pm and people are flooding the parking lots. A-girl tells me she’s there with some friends (who are driving her, thankfully) and then tells me to follow them to the next place we’re going. Fine, I’m along for the ride.
In the middle of all this, my sister calls and asks me if I have Mom and Dad’s house key. “Not with me” I tell her. My niece, who is in from out of town is staying with my parents while she’s here. Mom and Dad are down for the night (it’s around 11:30pm by now) and she doesn’t want to wake them just to get in. Anyhow, it turns out she finds her key and everything is good. During the conversation numerous motorcycles are roaring away and I can barely hear a thing my sister is saying.
So A-girl shows up and tells me to follow a Chrysler van that her friends are driving. I can see everyone heading for a vehicle but there’s so much traffic in the way I can’t tell which vehicle they get into. I see a mini-van pull away and hope that’s them.
I called L2 and said “is that you in front of me?” She answers in the affirmative but I’m still not comfortable it’s them in front of me – especially since it’s a Nissan.
So the caravan is under way and there are a couple of U-turns involved. Now I’m really wondering if I’m following the right van and it eventually turns out that I am. We finally arrive at this club that no one has ever been to.
We walk in to this small club and run smack into one of my all-time pet peeves… allow me to digress. We’re in a small club with tile flooring and hardwood everywhere else. There is a 3-piece band with their amps cranked to “11”. It’s so loud that the glasses are shaking on the tables. They could turn the volume down by half and it would still be considered loud. I don’t understand why bands do this. Everyone is yelling at the top of their lungs and I still cannot hear all of what’s being said.
So the band takes a break and I’m thinking, “Yes, I’ll be able to hear conversations again”. There’s about a half a beat before the DJ cranks up the hip-hop to “11”. I’m looking around and there are 2 black guys in the corner of the bar having their drinks. Everyone else is white and looks like they should be golfing. Now, I’m not a racist but hip-hop is generally thought to be the black person’s music. I don’t have a problem with the genre; I have a problem with the total volume of the music and the fact that it’s not even the ‘good’ hip-hop music.
To be fair, I would not expect to hear Willie Nelson in a predominantly black club. This is not really what I wanted to talk about. Quick recap: I’ve gone from a family event, to a biker bar, to a club that’s playing loud music.
Wait, it gets better.
So the band comes back, plays three incredibly loud songs and then they’re gone. By this time (2:00am) the bar is closing. “You don’t have to go home but you can’t stay here”. So everyone pours back out into the parking lot and someone mentions going to this, uh… “adult” toy shop that’s right down the street. Okay, I’ve heard stories about this place – lets go see what the fuss is about.
We pull up and it’s this shop in a strip mall (no pun intended) that has 3 or 4 other shops. We walk in and they ask to see ID’s. Fine, ID check complete. We walk through this door and the place is clean and well lit. It’s sort of like a record store where all the records are magazines and all the accessories are… well, accessories.
Now I’m strolling around like a well-informed consumer (“Look at this -- $14 for a 10-inch and $20 for a 12-inch. That’s $6 for an extra 2 inches of dildo”) and the people I’m with are laughing at almost everything. I’m not sure if it was the alcohol talking or just the level of maturity. I think it was a bit of a buzz-kill for them that I wasn’t shocked by anything I found.
L2 had found this ‘appliance’ and looked like she was going to purchase it. “I don’t know,” she says. “If you really want it,” I say “I’ll buy it for you”. She laughs a bit, looks at it and says, “I don’t know” a couple more times. Long story short: we end up not buying it.
We left there pretty quickly (I thought). L2 had to pee like a racehorse but they didn’t have a public bathroom so she went out by the dumpster on the side of the building. If I had known what they were doing I would have gone to watch.
We all said our ‘good nights’ and drove away. I’m heading back to my house and I’m pretty sure I know which way to go. I find my road and I start heading down it. I just happened to look down at the gas gauge and I’m running pretty low. I need to find a gas station quick.
So I’m trucking down the road and I notice that the streetlights start disappearing. I notice things don’t look like they should. I notice there’s no place to turn around. I’m still pretty sure I know where I’m going. I pass by a sign and I’m still on the right road.
I turn off on another road – Hey, I’m familiar with the name of this road. I still don’t see anything familiar… let me double back and get on the original road I was on. Meanwhile the gas is disappearing faster than I can keep up with. I’m driving down long dark roads with very little gas. I pull off to the side and see if A-girl can help. My cell phone has NO reception. I drive a little further ahead and I see a sign “State Line – 6 miles”. Ooops!
I make another U-turn and headed back to where I came from. Finally I get to a 4-way intersection and have gotten so turned around that I don’t know which way I came from last. I spy a gas station not far from the intersection.
I get some gas and ask the cute little blonde behind the counter which way I need to go. (See, men CAN ask for directions).
Turns out I was on the right road just generally headed in the wrong direction. A mile or two down the road I see some familiar sights and make it home.
So the next morning (Father’s Day) comes entirely too early. With my misguided journey last night, it got me home and asleep much later than I would have preferred. Now I’m at the place we’re having breakfast and the entire population of the city has turned out. But I don’t see my parents or my sister there.
Eventually my niece shows up and we wait. And wait. And wait. Everyone else shows up and we wait. And wait. And wait. We waited an hour just to be seated. This is the kind of place where you can generally walk in and get a table as soon as you step in.
We wait another half hour before food arrives. By this time I’m so hungry I could eat the table. We had no time to digest our food because so many other people were waiting we had to give up the table. Breakfast was awesome, though.
Oh, yea – biorhythms…