A date

Work was work. I’m coming off two exceptionally difficult weeks, but I’m seeing light at the end of the tunnel. I just hope it isn’t a train.

I’m breaking in a new boss, and this was his first month end flying solo. It went very smoothly, all things considered, but I had to be very aware of how to keep it going that way. I’m also in the middle of the account from hell that I’m trying to un-snarl through our review department, as I have said.

By tonight, when I got home, I was ready for some peace, and quiet, and my good book. Plus the weather is awful. Nasty, drizzly, rainy yuck. But I had a late date tonight. At 10:30. In a bar. And not just a bar, but also a bar downtown which entails finding parking, and then walking through the yuck to get someplace I really didn’t have any desire to be. I really wanted to be tucked in bed with my book. So I was really trying to remember why I had thought this had seemed like a good idea before I even left the house.

But I had given my word. So I straightened up the house, showered, and went back out into the misery. Fortunately the rain had slacked off for a bit. I (amazingly) found a parking place for free within a block of the bar. As I headed that way, he called to say he was going to be late. I wasn’t particularly gracious. I was crabby, it was yucky out, and I really didn’t want to be at a straight bar this far past my bedtime already, and now he was going to be late on top of that?! Plus, I had just caught a glimpse of my reflection in a store window, and discovered that my faithful ole hoodie that is so comfy and warm gives me a remarkable resemblance to Jabba the Hutt. Not. Happy.

I tried calling back to see if he would meet me somewhere else, but now he wasn’t answering his phone. A text message elicited no response. Grrrr.

I got to the bar, and got a table. I was dressed for comfort and warmth, not really for style. In keeping with current fashion, the bar featured no carpet, no rug, no curtains, nothing to muffle this two-storied echoing chamber of noise. Which began filling up with children. Noisy, loud, thin, fashionably dressed children with cocktails. All having a great time. As I sat there, by myself. I ordered a glass of wine, actually a quite nice Albarino. And I sat. And waited. A lumpy, quiet, solitary dodo in a room full of sociable flamingos. From somewhere, a loud stereo began blaring rock music into the reverberating cacophony.

I was in Greenville's only Tapas Bar. I have been there once before, but never went back because a) the food wasn't that great, and b) the prices were practically usury. There was however, one particularly good dish they used to make, a stuffed mushroom with a cheese and wild rice filling that was exceptional. I found that it is no longer on the menu.

Half an hour later, as I was paying for the over-priced wine, and preparing to hie the fuck back home, he got there.

We ended up in a little coffee place down on South Main; formerly crack central, now charmingly re-urbanized and christened “Scenic West End”. We talked. Or I talked. A lot. I asked him some of the questions I had been wondering about.

The rest of this post has been redacted by the subject, who threw a good old fashioned hissy-fit.