CHILI-ING TIME AT THE BAR

My friend and I are sitting in the bar in a booth at Chilis.  It's a Monday night, not a particularly busy evening, for sure, so we have time to hog the table and yak.  As we do so, we start to notice the people dotting the bar itself.

On our side of the wrap-around bar sit three men.  They are not together, at least not physically.  One guy in a suit sits three stools from a guy in business casual who is four stools away from another business casual guy.

This is not the unusual part.

We notice that each of the men wears dress socks -- the loose, semi-polyester knit calf socks with interesting designs.  Suit Guy has dark socks with little decorations interspersed throughout the material.  Business Casual #1 is wearing hideous tan socks with some kind of red and yellow diamonds running up the outside like misaligned fishnet stockings.  Business Casual #2 is wearing dark socks, possibly blue, which a striped design.  This anomaly of work socks should render them a group, but that's still not the weird part.

The bizarre thing about these three gentlemen is that each one is decadently sipping a glass of red wine.

Seriously.  Wine.  At Chilis.  At the bar.  Alone.  Each one alone as alone can possibly be when sitting mere feet from one's bar-stooled doppelgangers.

Chilis has an extensive bar list, from beer selections to alcohol.  Granted they do not make coconut margaritas, but still they have a good stock of hard liquor and quite a few taps of beer (not to mention the bottled back-up list).  This isn't the place where wine would be first on my list of things to order, and not because I'm a snob. Sweetie, I am one of the least wine-snobbish people you will ever meet.  Shit, I'll drink wine out of a box, for chrissakes.  But this -- This is awkward.  Three guys, all wearing slightly saggy office-style socks, all sitting a few seats apart, all sipping red wine.

Alone.

Is it a conspiracy?  Some kind of signal?  Some secret CIA-style sting?  Are they part of a dating ring, waiting for the women and using each other as back-up in case they need to bail before introductions?  "I'll be the guy drinking the red wine at the bar.  Pretend you know me and I'll get you out clean."

Whatever it may be -- predetermined or coincidence -- we find it wildly entertaining and giggle-worthy, which, of course, means another successful dinner out.  Thank you, Chilis, and thank you, gentlemen.  Cheers!

NAP TIME

Last week was a long, tough week at school.  Friday night I came home, took a ninety-minute nap, stayed up for a bit, then went to bed.

Saturday was a busy but fun day.  I sat out in the sun for an hour and started reading a book.  I had company, we ate lunch, then we went wine tasting.  I came home, read for a bit, then took a nap.

Sunday I worked on school stuff all day long, ran laundry (five loads for me and the kiddos), paid bills, and read my book.  In between all of this, I took a nap.

I can tell the school year is almost over.  Even my exhaustion has exhaustion.  It's to the point where I shouldn't sit down, especially not on the big, comfy, tempting chair in the living room with the giant ottoman that has easy-to-reach blankets hidden inside. It's like a Nap Trap just waiting for me to fall into it.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have one more chapter to go in the book, and I suspect a nap is calling.

WINE OF THE WEEK: THE PESSIMIST RED BLEND 2014

I'm at my favorite wine store for the Saturday tasting, and it's like the tour bus just stopped.  Wall-to-wall people.  Best of all, though, Bob, the guest pourer, is making his usual magic with conversation and marveling us all with his ability to remember exactly which bottle each of us is on without ever missing a beat.

Some mighty tasty wines are on today's list, all picked by the guest host, and most of them are reds.  I am still searching for a decent white, so it looks like today's efforts might be for naught.  There is a decent French Voignier, but it's not quite what my palate has been craving, and there is a rose, but I've been rose-d quite a bit since the Kentucky Derby.

It looks like another Battle of the Reds.

Out of the seven reds on today's list, I am thrilled to see a chianti, which is a red I don't see often at tastings.  It's a contender, to be sure, as is the pinot noir from Oregon.  But today's battle is really between just two.  First up is Le Cirque Rouge, a 2013 red from France that is smooth and drinkable with a great finish.  You know how some reds beg for cheese?  Not this one -- It stands on its own.

The second contender is a red blend from California. It's dark, a red-violet color and texture, and clings to the glass like blood.  This wine earned a 91-point rating from Wine Advocate, which sometimes means nothing to me because I like what I like, but we seem to agree on this one.  Better yet, it's less than $20 per bottle.

The only problem is that I simply cannot buy another red just yet.  My wine rack is half full, it's packed with reds, and I'm the sole consumer of these bottles at the moment.  I should be deeply ashamed of myself, yet, of course, I am not.

Ultimately, though, no wine comes home with me today, not even when I come across a second tasting closer to home.  The guy at Tasting #2 pours a chenin blanc from Cotes du Rhone (I did not write down which vineyard) that is very nice, close to what I'm searching for in a white wine, but not close enough to convince me to adopt a bottle.

I come home with a six-pack of Bad Martha Vineyard Summer Ale to tide me over, but I keep the hand-out from today's tasting.  When my wine rack springs an empty slot (okay, a half-empty slot since it's half-full), I'm filling it with this week's wine winner:  THE PESSIMIST RED BLEND, a 2014 wine from Daou Vineyard in California.

TECHNO-GENIUS OPTIONS

Thank you, techno-wizards, for inventing the "hide posts" and "unfollow" options on websites such as Facebook. This function allows me to bitch-slap people without them even realizing I'm bitch-slapping them, and it prevents me from being arrested.

Someone posts something so radically and socially retarded that you shake your head wondering how he or she remembers to wipe (its) own asshole in the morning?  CLICK.  Gone.  Gone faster than the lingering smell of the brain-dump he/she produced.

It works, for real. I don't need a gun, there's no bloodshed, and nobody has to come bail me out of jail in the middle of the day.  Best of all, the dimwit has NO IDEA its posts are being ignored.

If only this could translate into real life, though.  Imagine for a moment that someone says something to you that is so incredibly heinous that all you can do is stand there staring with your mouth completely agape.  Instead of wasting brain cells plotting ways to yank this person's tongue out and hog-tie him with it, there would be some cosmic "unfollow" that would automatically happen with a nod of your Jeannie head or a twitch of your Samantha mouth.

POOF.  Gone.

Now, take it one step further.  Imagine for a moment that we could apply this same strategy to things like work.  Imagine if you could "unfollow" a boss whose long-winded rambling at a meeting is causing you to lose precious post-work social time.  A simple "hide post" flick of an index finger, and BOOM ... Freedom.

Step it up one more notch -- "Unfollow" the political machinations associated with the presidential (or any) election.  How cool would it be if every single medium just suddenly stopped inundating us all with puke-worthy political pablum?  Good lord, our collective blood pressure would drop to normal levels.

While people complain to Facebook and other social media websites about the stickers and icons that we lack, such as The Finger, I'll be thanking them for the "hide post" and "unfollow" options that we do have available.

But really, you techno-geniuses should work on more practical, real-world applications if you honestly want to make a difference in the world.

Now, for more real-world applications, I'm going to laugh my ass all the way to the I-Don't-Give-A-Fuck-About-You place when you unfollow me.  See my caring face?  You can't?  Hmmmm... Hey, techno-geniuses: Next invention!

CARAMEL SWIRL ICED COFFEE

I recently admitted in this blog that I just started drinking coffee.  This is all pretty damn funny since I used to be a shift supervisor at Dunkin Donuts.  I also admitted that I only drink iced coffee and not hot coffee (which is weird since I only drink hot tea and not iced tea).  It has taken me a long time, but I can and will drink two types of iced coffee:  pumpkin spice and caramel.

So today I'm feeling confident in my ability to order coffee.  I am meeting my daughter at the hair salon, and she will be running late, so I offer to bring the iced coffees with me to the salon.  We are texting back and forth, and I write, "Regular caramel iced, right?"

Almost immediately, as if to prevent my faux pas, she texts me back, "CARAMEL SWIRL."

Shit.  You mean to tell me I've just started ordering coffee and I'm already doing it wrong?

What. The. Hell.

I go in to Dunks, give my order to the kid behind the counter, and then ask him, "What's the difference between caramel iced coffee and caramel swirl iced coffee?"  (No, there was no such animal as flavored coffee when I worked at Dunks.  It was just coffee -- any way you wanted it with cream, milk, sugar, or sweetener, but that was it.  I truly am clueless.)

To his credit, the young man offers up that sometimes at Dunks when you ask for a caramel iced coffee, they just put a shot of caramel into a regular coffee.  Apparently the caramel swirl has added sugar.  Sugar on top of the sugar, which, to me, sounds like I've died and gone to Heaven.

Fifteen minutes later, I am sitting at the hair salon sipping my caramel SWIRL iced coffee.  Life is reasonably good.  Now, if I can just find a  cure for the agida I often get in my stomach from drinking this damn stuff, I might finally be able to say that after making it to this stage of my life, I have, indeed, mastered the fine art of drinking coffee. 

Well, ordering it, anyway.

RUNNING ON EMPTY PATIENCE

My patience is running mighty thin these days.

This morning I remember that it's trash day.  I never forget about trash day.  Why would I?  It happens once a damn week, every damn week.  I do actually remember trash day at the last moment and start running around like a crazy person hauling bags to the curb.  Of course, it's my biggest trash week since Christmas.  Two trips back and forth, and my bags are out, and thankfully it is before the garbage truck gets there.

Work keeps getting interrupted.  New class times, state testing for six days, meetings scheduled then cancelled then rescheduled, mock shootings, evaluations ... Every day is a footrace against the clock, and every step I take is impeded by one unnecessary interruption (finicky printers) after another (fainting students),and more.

And what's with everyone's driving?  Is everyone texting while sitting at traffic lights?  Go, people!  Go, Dog, go!  I have places to be and people to see, and the last thing I want to do is sit through several lights while you "LOL" at someone's Facebook post with one hand  and hold your steering wheel with the other.  There's a reason we have speed limits, too, and it's not just to keep you from speeding.  If the speed limit is 50 mph, for the love of god, please don't drive 35 mph unless you want to see my skull implode.

Truly, everything is snapping my nerves lately: the car rental company that scratched the car after I returned it to scam my insurance company, the fake IRS robocalls and emails, neighbors parking in my driveway, the store refusing to help me bring air conditioners to my car after I spend hundreds of dollars, and on and on.

If you speak to me sharply, I will bite your damn head off; that's where my patience is these days -- somewhere up in thin air, and I doubt it will be landing any time soon.

BLIND GUY SUES MCDONALDS OVER DRIVE-THRU SERVICE

Anyone catch this headline yet?  "BLIND MAN SUES MCDONALD'S BECAUSE HE CANNOT USE DRIVE-THRU."

The story continues:  "A man from Louisiana who is blind, is suing the fast-food chain for allegedly failing to accommodate blind customers as a result of its drive-thru only policy during late-night hours."

Da fuq, man.  Seriously?

I am sorry you are legally blind.  I have a sister who is legally blind, and I hope she never hears about this lawsuit because then she'll be at McDonalds trying to get fries at one in the morning, and that would just suck because she has one bum leg that slows her down significantly, plus she's on dialysis and the salt will kill her.

 But, truly, what next?  Suing the bank because you want to use the drive-up tellers but you can't drive up to the drive-up?  Actually, there's Braille on the drive-up ATM, so I think the bank is covered for this one.

Or maybe you want to sue the library because they have more books on paper than they do on audio.  Maybe you'll sue the supermarket because you cannot see the avocados to tell if they're properly ripening or not.  Hell, sue major league sports because you cannot see when a foul ball is coming at you.  Sue Mother Nature for snow on the sidewalk.  Sue the zoo because you can't see the animals.

Sue, sue, SUE!  Sue every motherfucker on the planet, for all I care.

But, I have a solution.

This solution is actually better than the solution I have to Target's bathroom policy (DON'T GO POTTY AT TARGET - it keeps me out of the battle from either side).  It's better than the solution I have to the guy who entered the woman's locker room at the health club and claimed he felt feminine that day (QUIT THE GYM - I can sweat in my own home for far less money per month, and it keeps me out of the battle from either side).  This solution is better than the "everyone gets a trophy" philosophy at youth sports (GO CLUB TEAMS - Only winners get trophies and losers get character building experiences, plus it keeps me out of the battle from either side).

Here's my solution.  Are you ready?  I know it's ground-breaking, earth-shattering even, so prepare yourselves.  It's about to be revealed.  Keep reading.  You're almost there ... you'll see it ... unless you're blind ... sue me ... but I digress...

DON'T STAY OPEN LATE.

Oh, sure, I know.  If McDonald's actually CLOSES when it CLOSES, they'll probably be attacked by the fast-food zombies for not serving them leftover burgers in wimpy rolls at 12:45 a.m.  Can you even imagine the horror?  It'll be like Night of the Living Dead with half-drunk, hungry high people babbling things like, "McFlurry! Apple pie! BIG FUCKING MAC!"  Or maybe it'll be like Attack of the Killer Tomatoes but with two all-beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, onions, on  a sesame seed bun.  (That jingle was once an extra-credit question on Mr. Wettergreen's freshman English exam.)

Really.  DON'T STAY OPEN LATE.  Just close.  Close and send the workers home at a decent hour.  Let the hippies go get Slushies at Store 24 or candy bars from an all-night CVS or leftover half-eaten subs from the trash like other crazy-ass night people do.

Fuck you, blind guy; fuck you and your frivolous lawsuit.  We are NOT all equal.  Some of us are blind, some of us have curly hair, and some of us are short.  Guess what, Blind Guy, I'm too fucking SHORT to walk through the drive-through, anyway.  Should I sue?  Because I'm just about as tall as a Hobbit, now I cannot partake in after-hours Happy Meals!

The injustice of it all!!!!!!

And now it's your fault, Blind Guy.  You are so goddamned selfish that you're suing McDonald's because you're blind.  You don't even care about us short people.  You just overlook us, literally, like everyone else ... even though you're blind ... so you don't over nor under look me, but that's not the point.

YOU are NOT a CAR.  You CANNOT drive through the drive-through because you cannot DRIVE.

You cannot make everyone happy -- You are not pizza.

Speaking of pizza -- Do THEY stay open late?  Hey, Blind Guy.  Don't forget about Pizza Hut and Papa Gino's.  Might as well piss off everyone, while you're at it.