What a 'Trip'...

Making plans with my buddy is always nice. Making plans and going through with them is even nicer. I haven’t seen my friend Bri is a long time, so we decided to meet at a local restaurant nearby to catch up. Now, when I say ‘local’, it’s more local for me. She knows I have this weird thing about driving up north.

I figured I’d stop into the restaurant and sit at the bar to have a drink before Bri got there. She was running late. No problem. I used to bartend at this place, so I knew a few people here and there. I wasn’t worried about sitting there by myself enjoying a cocktail or three.

I’m not sure if it was the type of people sitting around me, or if it was just an awkward mood I was in—but everyone and anyone who knows me wouldn’t doubt for a second that I could conjure up a conversation with all the barflies. That evening, it was different.

The guy at the corner of the bar who was sitting four seats down just stared at me. No smile, no expression and no ‘hellos’. Okay, whatever. Don’t need to talk to him. Then a little old lady (maybe in her 70’s) walks up to the bar, and sits down in the seat right next to me. Oh good, I love talking to older people. Nope. She opened up her huge novel and started reading. Normally, if it was a beautiful lively chicky, I would start giving the one liners like, “Wow, I’m impressed—my attention span is next to zero if I attempted to open a book in here…” I couldn’t say it with this one. It just didn’t flow. She’d probably look at me over her reading glasses and say, “Aye???” She ordered a scotch on the rocks. I figured she’d talk to me eventually. No... No conversation to be stirred. I sat there not knowing what to do. This is so out of my character.

Finally, the bartender who was serving switched shifts with my friend who saved me. Now I had my buddy to chit-chat with until Bri came in. Just then, a slew of people that just got out of work piled into the bar, and my friend who was tending was flooded with drink orders. Once again, left at the bar speechless. I’m dying here. The more time passed, the more I kept sipping on my beer. The more beers that were replaced, the more fuzzy my vision started to get. Great. Bri’s going to walk in here and see me sloshed on the bar like a dishrag. Lovely.

I get a tap on my shoulder. It was Bri. Thank the heavens. She sat next to me and we started talking. I was planning to eat at the bar, but this one guy kept staring at us until we finally felt his vibes.

“Deb? Do you know that guy or something? He keeps staring at us. He’s freaking me out.”
“Yeah, he comes into this bar a lot, and he’s not exactly ‘Mr. Personality’. I think he has some issues. Just ignore it.”
I said, as I felt even more uncomfortable.

The stares kept getting more intense. We felt it. We decided to grab a table and be rid of this stalker. I then though, the funny thing about ‘thinking people are staring’ is that they’re probably not even staring at you. I realized that we were sitting in a location where you can see people pass by on the streets. It’s actually the only place to look. I must have sat in his seat many times staring out into that window. I wonder how many times people thought I was stalking them.

Now that our paranoia was out of the way, we were all cozy in our little corner table talking away like two high school girls who hadn’t seen each other in years. Drinks kept flowing and so did the shots. After dinner, I excused myself to go to the ladies’ room.

The chairs we were sitting in were very light and had tall backs. I had placed my leather coat along with my extremely heavy purse on the back of the chair. My purse has everything in it from bottled water, a five pound wallet to a ton of change lying in the bottom of the pit of my pocketbook. No kitchen sink—just other crap.

Well, I get up to excuse myself, and the chair goes down. The chair literally drops from behind me because of the weight of my luggage hanging on to the back of it. Whenever I see someone’s chair fall back, or a bar stool drop—that’s it---last call! Cut her off! Bring her home! You know that the person who dropped the chair is ossified at this point. Yeah, I was three sheets to the wind, but I had my wits about me, and my stability; so I thought…

I look up to see Bri’s face bight red. No—it was fire engine bright red. Her smile was from ear-to-ear and I heard her thoughts from a mile away. “What a punkass!” She always calls me that when I do something stupid.

I’m not the most graceful person on earth—this I’ll admit. I trip over my own two feet, stumble and hope that no one saw me, or just simply fall out of my chair. I’ve even fell flat on my face on a treadmill once before; and yes it was at my gym! Can you imagine me on skates? I knew I was going to get made fun of and mocked all night because of this stunt. But to my surprise, I didn’t. In fact, she was like, “No, everyone was doing their own thing and in their own world…no one saw.” Yeah, no one saw but her! That’s the difference.

Just when I thought I was in the clear, I get this email from her thanking me for a lovely evening out and that she had fun. I was all happy she didn’t bring up my clumsy episode. Then she guided me to a link and said, “Oh click on this. You’ll love it. It reminds me of you so much Deb!”

So I clicked on it. This is the image that came up...
Thanks Bri! ...I'll get you back for this!