An Evening With Some Potheads

The other night I was out enjoying a drink and attempting to catch up on some posts.   I’ve been desperately attempting for quite some time to sit down and pound out some ideas so that I’m a few days ahead and not completely stressed out.

I’ve been terribly unsuccessful.

So I was out at a lovely establishment where Dave got called in to do a little last-minute bar help and took advantage of the awesome writing day I was having.  Words flowed so easily for me; I didn’t even have to edit what came out of me.  I had every intention of writing at least three posts before I left the bar that evening but my attempts were thwarted by a chatty activist and a surprise benefit. 

I arrived at 8:30pm and wrote with a fury, pleased that after a long dry spell things were coming so naturally.  At 9:00pm, a gentleman came to the bar and sat down beside me to chat.  

I’m not very good at handling these sorts of situations.  I used to just put out a really heavy hate vibe and hope that people were too intimidated to talk to me.   But over the past year or so I’ve been really trying to fix that and now I feel bad relying on it.  Which is why my writing attempt was thwarted by a discussion of pot activism.

Yeah, that’s right: pot.  Weed, green, cookies, Papa C’s Funky Space Boots.  Apparently at 10:00 that evening there was a benefit for a pot advocacy group.  Their goal is to legalize marijuana so that the country can regulate and tax it and so they can stop hiding it from their landlords.  The gentleman who sat down next to me (let’s call him Deeb) wanted to make sure I knew all the statistics, history, and details associated with their pursuit.

I just wanted to write.

It’s not that I don’t care about pot legalization – I do.  But Deeb doesn’t understand how difficult it is to write 366 (thanks a lot, Leap Year) unique posts when I also have a job, a second job, and do not have the benefit of being inspired by the creative properties of Papa C’s Funky Space Boots.  

I tried everything I had in my Polite Bag, including emphasizing that I didn’t know there was a benefit that night, that I sat at the end of the bar to be away from everything so that I could write, and that my boyfriend was working there (complete with a visual cue).   Finally I got  in the Slightly Rude Bag and pulled out my cell phone to text a friend and invite her to come.   If I was going to throw a great day of writing down the tubes, I was going to at least get good conversation with a friend in exchange.

At 10:00pm when I’d decided to dip into the Blatantly Rude Bag, a girl approached me and told me that the evening was a benefit for her group and that there was a cover charge of ten dollars.

You’re kidding, right?

I wanted to give her a full lesson on the concept of a cover charge.   No one starts an event and goes inside to tell everyone that’s already been in the establishment for an hour and a half that they owe them money.  I’m pretty sure that in any other part of town, that would have warranted a punch in the face.  But I was tired and annoyed and didn’t have any cash on me anyway so I decided to just say “Oh, I’ve been here since 8:30 – I actually came for dinner and didn’t know there was a benefit tonight.  I don’t have any cash on me, but I can talk to the bartender and see if he can charge my card and pass along the money.”   She replied “Well, we’re a nonprofit soooooo…”

Allow me to defer to a fellow blogger’s post on ending phrases with “so”.  Here, Pegoleg lays out her disdain for the unresolved phrase and considers the due consequence: killing offenders and hiding them in her floorboards.

You can understand why I’m an avid follower.

Of course, had I not read the post, I would not have been thinking about the variety of ways I could kill the person in front of me for her offense.  In fact, she had to die for a multitude of offenses being that she attempted to charge me a cover when I was already in the bar.  Absolutely, death was the only option.  

But just then, my friend arrived and beckoned me to the other end of the bar, where I dodged both Deeb and the fundraising zealot.  The stand-up comedians began to take the stage (oh yes, it was a comedy benefit) and I woefully waved goodbye to my inspiration and ease of language for the evening.

Maybe when Deeb and the zealot succeed in their quest, I can hit them up for some help with the dry spell they’ve caused. ♣

Tags: 365 Project, blogging, Humor, life, musings, postaday2011