The other night I went to a "bar." It was a small neighbourhood bar,
and I had never been there before, but from the outside window it
looked like there was a lot of action inside, so I decided to venture
in. Inside, it was a fairly large room with a dance floor on won end,
small tables on the other end, and others scattered throughout the
middle. Along the side wall, there a long bar behind which bartenders
were serving drinks to patrons on the other side. The room was dimly
lit, save for some neon signs populating the walls and "intelligent
lighting" bopping about over the dance floor. A few people were up
dancing to the music playing over the establishment's electronic
amplification system, and others were milling around and chatting.

I sat down at a table next to the "disc jockey" whose equipment was
set up adjacent to the dance floor. I had with me a small plastic
grocery bag filled with various personal items (a toothbrush,
toothpaste, a couple of individually wrapped sandwiches, a local
interest newspaper, a small portable radio, and a wad of napkins)
which I sat down on the table. I began earnestly attempting to bounce
my head and snap my fingers to the rhythm of the jangly pop tune that
the deejay was playing. I noticed a couple of people were checking me
out, so I kept it up, hoping they would think I was cool.

I saw a guy across the room who was talking to an attractive girl. He
was doing his best attempt at--what I could only assume was--trying to
"hit on" her. The attractive girl seemed disinterested, but
nonetheless, she kept on talking to him for onwards of twenty minutes.
Then, the guy pulls out won of those "Zippo" cigarette lighters and
tries to do that thing that cool smokers do where they "flip" open the
lighter and light the cigarette in won swoop--only it didn't work! So,
instead of just going ahead and lighting it the normal way, he tried
the flip move again...AND AGAIN! He finally did it right on the third
try, but I just had to shake my head in embarrassment for him as I sat
there snapping my fingers and bopping up and down in my chair. After
that, the girl kind of said some kind of parting words to him and made
her way back to her table of her female friends.

As she sat down, I noticed won of her friends whisper something to
here and point over in my direction. Then, the girl subtly glanced up
at me. She looked back at her friend and they kind chuckled hiding
their faces in each other's shoulders. I wondered, "What the heck is
going on?" I could see the friend telling her insistently to do
something, and the girl hesitantly got up (acting all embarrassed
like) and with kind of a half smile on her face, she began walking
over to me. WHAT??? What was she going to do to me? A feeling of
horror fell over my whole body. That's when it hit me: SHE WAS TRYING
TO STEAL MY STUFF.

I quickly jerked my hand up and grabbed my bag of stuff. She
continued to walk towards me. I clutched my bag in my fist with all
of my might. I gave her this look, like I'm sure they do in the
animal kingdom, which means "Back off! this is MY stuff!" She
hesitated for a moment, and furled her eyebrows at me and gave me kind
of half-cocked smile. She continued to walk towards me. WHAT DID SHE
THINK, THIS WAS SOME KIND OF GAME??? I hastily jumped out of my
chair, clutching my bag tightly against my person, and I began to run
to the other side of the room. She chased me! This girl wasn't
giving up. I ran around in a circle encompassing the breadth and
width of the barroom as she half-heartedly chased me, laughing all the
way. She finally stopped and stood still for a moment, and I turned
around to face her. It was like an old-fashioned "showdown." I
growled at her, like a bear, only not as harsh (I did not want to
scare her; I just wanted to let her know, THIS IS MY STUFF). She
finally shook her head and shrugged her shoulders in defeat and let
out a kind of embarrassed chuckle. She gave up. She walked back to
her table of friends and they all had a good laugh at her. I WON!! I
was so happy, I started skipping around on the dance floor, bandying
my arms back and forth as my bag of stuff jostled to and fro.

Finally, the large man who stands over by the entrance came up to me
and said, "Sir, you need to leave." I was stunned. I was like, "No,
I don't to leave. I don't have anywhere I need to be." He said, "No,
you've had too much to drink. You have to go." I protested, "No I
haven't; I haven't ordered any drinks all night!" He said, "Well,
this bar is for paying customers only. We don't need you loitering
around here disturbing the customers, so you need to go." At that
moment, the girl--THE GIRL THAT TRIED TO ROB ME--came up and tapped
him on the shoulder. He turned around towards her, and I quickly
darted behind the large man's shoulder and clutched my bag. Then she
told him, "This won's on me." WHAT? I was stunned. What a turn of
events! The large man laughed and said, "OK, he's all yours!" as he
shook his head. I timidly walked around from behind the large man and
took a few steps towards her. I was shaking in fear, but she just
smiled and said, "You are TOO funny!" I gulped, and squeaked out a
"Thank you." She said, "My name's Jennifer. I just want to say, you
cracked us up tonight. My friends and I think you're hilarious." And
with that, she walked me over to her table and introduced me to her
friends. She ended up buying me beer all night! We talked and talked
and became fast friends. What a wonderful end to an otherwise
frightening event.

So that's my story. I hope you all enjoyed it. And I hope you
learned a thing or two as well. It just goes to show, you can't
always assume the worst. But if you do, watch out--you may just get a
friend out of it!

The End.

On Wed, 24 Jan 2007 01:05:50 -0500, Wavy G >
wrote:

>The other night I went to a "bar."

You're back! When did you get out of rehab?


--
See return address to reply by email