One drink at a time............

I ran a fundraising poker tournament the other night for my fraternity. We ended up with around 30 people and had a nice mix of alumni/actives in attendance. Afterwards, a few of the actives asked me if I wanted to go down to the local bar for a couple of beers. With Mrs. Lime working late, I didn't have any reason to say no.

The bar has both a restaurant and a bar area. The food there is actually pretty good stuff, but the bar takes over after 7:00 PM. I found the guys in the bar area, already with pitchers of beer on the table. As soon as I walked up to the table, I found the guys being stalked by two 40+ year old women who had drank their share of alcohol. The women were snapping pictures everywhere. Of course, they also snapped a couple of pictures of me. Who knows where those pictures will end up, but I doubt the women will even remember where they took the pictures given their advanced level of alcohol consumption.

After a few minutes, the women left and I started chatting with the guys. One of them was going to be a religion professor. Another one said he'd be interested in being a music professor. One of the alumni was a pool cleaner. I even found a student that wanted to cut hair for a living. Wide variety of people in this gathering, but we had a great time.

One thing that I immediately thought about while I was in the bar was how glad I was to not have to be in the dating scene anymore. Between the stories that the college kids told and the people-watching I did at other tables in the bar, I remembered how much of a hassle it was to go around looking for 'the right one'. Some people see dating as a game. I always saw it as the means to an end, which could never come quickly enough. It seems like such a pain viewing it as an outsider.

Another thing that struck me was the female lead singer in the band. No, she didn't actually strike me. She spent the time in-between songs yelling out what she was drinking during the last song. Judging from her dancing and her slurred lyrics, she had been drinking quite a bit during the songs. I'm going to go out on a limb and say that the drinks were likely on the house and she walked out of that bar with a paycheck and a next-morning hangover.

There were also two guys who walked in who were very noticeable. They strutted like a peacock trying to mate. I've never seen a more blatant display of two young guys trying to 'be cool'. I pointed it out to some of the guys at my table and they got a good laugh out of it. The only thing that would have been more funny is if they would have made an announcement at the door letting everyone in the bar know that they had entered the room. They essentially did that, although it was non-verbally.

I'm thinking there's a good chance that I'll take Mrs. Lime to that bar on a Friday or Saturday night. Everyone needs a good laugh from that kind of entertainment.