Skip navigation

Self-Portrait

12. A picture of you. 11/12/2010. I couldn't find any pictures of you, so I used a picture of me.

I’m guessing that whoever came up with this Picture-a-Day meme was feeling uncreative when they came up with number 12. “A picture of you.” That’s cool, I know the feeling.

Passed the halfway point early this morning. As always, the milestone word was a barn-burner. It was “and.” Makes me wish I’d been writing an incredibly long compound sentence with this “and” being the pivot point for the whole thing. But, we can’t always get what we blah blah blah.

Not a whole lot to choose from for today’s excerpt, but I don’t want to disappoint, so: Paul and Arthur have left work and headed over to Paddy O’Irish, the local faux-Irish pub. The joint is crowded (it’s happy hour!) and conflict’s a-brewing (for the faint of heart out there, fear not, the conflict is swiftly and peacefully resolved.)

“We were waiting for those chairs,” said a vaguely familiar looking 20-something to my right. He and his buddy moved closer to me than I felt was socially acceptable. I sized him up, figured I could probably take him so long as Paul took care of his friend. I was a lover, and not a fighter, and also, most of the time, not a lover. Usually it took three or four drinks before I started thinking about how awesome it would be to get into a fight, but I’d had a hell of a day, and I wasn’t above doing things out of their usual order.

“Oh, sorry,” I said. Paul started to rise, but I put a hand on his shoulder, pressed him back down into the stool. “Hey, don’t I know you from somewhere?”

The guy studied my face. “I don’t know.”

“I swear I’ve seen you before,” I said, stroking my chin. I had no beard at the time, but it was useful as a thinking aid nonetheless. I snapped my fingers. “I’ve got it! You work for PackCo, don’t you?” PackCo was a box company in the same industrial park as Cola.

“Yeah,” the guy said. “How’d you know?”

“We,” I indicated Paul and myself, “work for Cola Industries.”

“Bully for you. I said my friend and I were waiting for those chairs.”

“He said ‘bully,’ Art,” Paul said, his voice full of awe. Ironic awe. “Did you hear that? He actually said ‘bully for you.’”

“I heard him, Paul.” I turned back to the PackCo employee. “Say, do you remember that wicked kickball tournament last month?”

“Yeah, of course.”

“Yeah, see, do you remember how Cola kicked PackCo’s ass?”

“I don’t see what this has to do with those chairs.”

“Well, we won the Cranbury Cup. You remember that, right? Yeah. And the winner of the Cranbury Cup automatically gets priority seating at O’Irish. It says so right on the trophy.”

“I don’t remember hearing that,” the guy said.

“Oh, it’s true,” Paul affirmed. “It’s tradition. Goes back twenty years.” Never mind the fact that Paddy O’Irish opened 18 months ago.

“Sounds like bullshit to me,” the guy’s friend said.

Just then, Stella, O’Irish’s friendliest and most attractive (yes, I asked her out; yes, she said no; yes, I explained it away by telling myself that I didn’t want to go out with her in the first place) bartender approached and said, “Hello, boys, what can I get you?”

“Stella, could you explain to these gentlemen here about how the winner of the Cranbury Cup gets first choice of seating here?”

Stella looked at me, and then at the two gentlemen in question. “Oh yes,” she said, “it’s a long-standing tradition. Goes back twenty-five years.”

Disheartened, the two PackCo employees retreated to the other side of the bar.

“So long boys,” I called after them. “Better luck next year. We’re big fans of your boxes!”

Paul and I ordered Yeunglings and drank them in comfort and style.

“That, my friend,” I said, “is why I always tip my bartender generously.”