I rolled into Slammies one weekday afternoon for a large draught of unreasonable expectations. There she was on the other side of the bar staring me right in the kisser. The only thing to do was to stick to the irrational exuberance script that has served me so well and soldier on.
A decade of Slammies separation meant the woman behind the bar did not recognize me as the regular I once was. Now was not the time to dissuade her. I ordered a pint. There was a CUBS hat on the bartenders head and Chicago CUBS Baseball was on the shiny new multitude of flat screen TV's that now littered the saloon. A far cry from the ancient flickering cathode ray tube corner mounted box that once served as the sports center of this one time corridor of a bar.
On the plus side I could not drink enough pints of unreasonable expectations to have them overtake me as I watched the energetic bartender reach for libations on the top shelve. Each reach exposing more of her well toned reasonably bared daytime mid-drift. Framed in what to me appeared goth inspired basic black attire. Modest but well fitting and well suited for the bars expanded and updated facade.
Her exposed belly bling sparkled and rewarded my irrationally exuberant countenance with a glint of rational promise. Then she rolled up with two shot glasses and a bottle of Jack and said, " I drank too much yesterday and if you don't do a shot with me now I might die."
Her sincerity and my gentlemanly tendencies coaxed an extra exuberant, "Bottoms up!" from me. That was our cue for the ritual downing of the booze. Even fueled by Jack Daniels the unreasonable expectations jet stream would not drag me along today.
He who drinks, then runs away will live to drink another day. Ball game was over and the end of the work day crowd was shuffling in so I bid the bartender ado, tipped her and my hat and out the door I went.
That was the first, but lucky for me, not the last time I would have a JoJo sighting,
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