Life is Lovely

Originally written on October 1, 2009 at 1:47pm

It's the same ol' scene at Father's Tavern, except the usual male bartender is in a meeting with the other managers. If I'm lucky, sometimes he runs through the bar, and fills my drink while the girls are slacking off. If the glass is empty, put more vodka in it. I'm here to drink, not fuck around.

(This female bartender charged me full price for Grey Goose, making my tab a whopping fifteen dollars more than last time, even though I had two shots less. I might be drunk, but I can still count.)

The first guy slides up, putting one chair between us. He started with beer, but seeing that I was alone and a heavy-hitter (that's right, baby), he moved on to vodka himself. The world is full of co-enablers. Want to make friends? Drink. Drinkers find each other, calling out with their secret language and their common instability. We're impulsive, destructive, and in general, more fun. He hands me his card. He went to law school, but never became a lawyer, is a business owner, but he talks more about his horses than anything else.

He buys me a drink even though he was educated that Grey Goose is horribly overpriced.

"All it is: great marketing. I'd rather drink Absolut," my father argued with me one day.

The government is sending me to school--to learn to drink. Life is lovely.

When man number one heads back to work, man number two comes sliding up next to me. Wolves, they always know prey, and I'm easy pickings, the wounds are visible through the white t-shirt, and I'm limping, leaving a trail of blood from a bite way too close to the heart.

He tilts his head towards my phone, which is beeping and chiming like  from IMs and several people TXT-messaging me.

The Parts Dealer is asking, albeit nicely, for me to give him another chance. He says he didn't know I had an anxiety disorder, he didn't know what was going on, and he thought I was left the races to go talk to my boyfriend.