Cheap Date?

It was a long day of work this Saturday. I don’t particularly like working Saturdays…come to think of it; I don’t like working Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays or the rest of the weekdays either. Work sucks. It’s for the birds. Tweet tweet.

I finished my day with a solo date to Valentino’s Café. What a place. It’s warm and welcoming with a slew of locals who are personable. The ones who know my name call it out, and I feel welcome, even though I would not consider myself a local to this establishment, or any other drinking/eating joint for that matter. But, nonetheless, they make me feel welcome.

The best way to enjoy a pasta dinner after a hard day’s work of grinding out mortar joints (the dirtiest, dustiest task asked of man) is to drink five cold beers and two glasses of ice water as fast as humanly possible. My mouth hydrates and my spirit becomes merry, whilst the kitchen’s finest prepare my feast.

The coaster that my beer beverage sits on says, “We are glad you’re here” and I admit, it makes me a little mushy inside. The man beside me is clearly drunk and merry as well. We make small talk and I thank god for social spaces with such souls.

Menus can disturb my appetite into a fit of indecision, and the stomach and I pitch insults to one another while the waitress sighs with a grin. There was no such disturbance and I was quick to order spaghetti with “chunky tomato” sauce and mushrooms. There was an assortment of meat sauce based dishes with sausage, meat balls or chicken to accompany the starch; but even though I am carnivorous, I chose a meat less meal for two reasons: the simplicity was cheaper and meat is not the healthiest substance. Clearly, I am a health conscious consumer.

The sun settled in the western window and the drunken gentleman beside me invited himself into a game of darts taking place behind me. He shot once and said, “I’ve made a very bad decision…I don’t know how to fix it”. And, immediately I began laughing profusely with beer running out of my nose. Quickly composed, I made sure that he was talking about the dart game, and not a fatal error in his complex lifestyle. “Are you talking about the dart game?”, I asked. “Yes.” He said, and I continued my laughter. It wasn’t that a mistake is funny, or that he landed a perfect line like from a joke book. No, my reaction was based purely on how sincere and concerned he was about the current position of his thrown darts. -‘Not like it was a tournament or anything…he just stomped into their game and took his first round. And, I may add that this is not the type of social gathering café that hosts dart sharks. Anyone knows better than to sway their way into a dart game at Hildy’s or Your Place Pizza…no no…we were among friends. Surely his game could be saved; if not even lost in the company of high-life slugging peers. It’s gonna be just fine, dude.

I ate my pasta like a beer buzzed hungry savage and complimented the bar maid’s taste in music, as random Beatle’s songs whispered from the liquor shelf.