Happy Hour Haunting
As a rule I do not participate in happy hour. What is so “happy” about 6 o’clock on a Tuesday? I still have to get up at the crack of dawn tomorrow morning. Happy hour for a bar is the daily equivalent of Valentine’s Day for greeting card and candy companies. A futile celebration designed to promote unnecessary spending and assist in the epidemic of unplanned pregnancies. When I’m sober, it’s easy to remind myself of previous happy hour horrors; but sometimes, after an extra long work day, I give in.
Recently my co-workers convinced me to have “one drink” before calling it a night. I gave myself a budget of $20 to cover one cocktail and a tip, thinking I could be cordial with my fellow employees without ruining my chances of getting my shit together for the next morning. As I was sipping my surprisingly strong Cosmopolitan, I noticed a very good looking man eyeballing me. He came over to me and engaged me in a conversation about politics that didn’t piss me off. My drink ended rather quickly so he offered to buy the next round. I accepted. We then sat at the bar and talked and drank for hours. He was amazing! We shared interests, hatreds, even taste in music. At some point I mentioned to him that I had to work in the morning, but he countered simply saying, “Don’t we all?”
So, naturally, we got wasted and made out like teenagers until last call. Not my finest hour, but it could have been worse, right? The next morning I woke up late and felt like death. I rushed to the car with a mug full of coffee and my makeup bag, hoping to fix myself up in the inevitable traffic. As I was applying mascara I peeked around the visor to check the status of the road and couldn’t believe what I saw. The handsome, profound man from the bar was standing in the median of the street with a sign that said, “I’m not gonna lie, I need a beer.” Seemingly, I had spent my previous evening at "happy hour" lip-locked with an alcoholic bum. Life is crap.
