The Bar and Memories of The Mobile Home Park

The Bar and Memories of The Mobile Home Park
    The second bartender poured me my happy hour shot of whiskey out of the well.  She seemed happy enough to do it, but you never know when someone's going to feel exploited.  I was careful not to check her out.
    The thing was, it was easy not to check her out since she had one of the prettiest sets of eyes I had ever seen.  I couldn't tell if she was wearing any makeup or not.  What I did know was I was ashamed to see them.  I wanted to tell her to put on a burqa because I was starting to get uncomfortable somewhere in between the first time she smiled at me and when I came to the sinking realization that those eyes - no matter how friendly, no matter how gorgeous - were too good for me.  The only solution was to go full Hostel on her with a blow torch.  Then, maybe then she'd fuck me.
    But I wasn't trying to fuck her!  Again, it's these goddamn taverns that hire these beautiful women.  They're trying to tell you you're a pervert when it's not true.  I came in for a drink because I get tired during my commute and I dread going home to do more work.  A little whiskey pick-me-up at the bar is perfect because once the alcohol metabolizes to sugar I can start doing the necessary clicking and typing for a few more hours.
    Working with computers is like licking taint.  It might seem appealing to some, but in truth, it puts you in a position where you're between a rock and a hard place. It's not that I don't want to get any work done, it's just that tendinitis hurts.  It hurts bad.  But maybe an energy drink can get me through the day without me realizing how much pain I'm in.  At what point does someone need a career change:  before, or after your ligaments explode?
    "Soda?"
    I told her it was unnecessary.  I wasn't trying to show off.  It's just that with all the alcohol I consume, it's probably not a good idea to add high fructose corn syrup to the equation.
    I was disappointed when she left to help another customer, but I didn't want to let on.  Small, ugly guys like me never get to hang out with pretty women.  That's just how it goes most of the time.
    As she walked away, I knew it was important not to look at her ass.  So instead I looked down into my shot glass and tried to remember how many ounces are in a shot.  My mind drifted.
    Maybe driving to Blaine's house was an option, instead of going home to continue working.  He had this sweet 8-track and if I could just apply myself and read the fucking manual maybe I could help Blaine and his friend Scott record some music.
    Blaine was able to hold down a day job, but he's also one of the best singer/songwriters I know.  Sometimes I go over to his place to smoke tobacco out of a water pipe in his garage when I'm having a bad day.  He doesn't seem to mind, but the neighbors do.  Sometimes I wonder if the tobacco smoke or the music bothers them more.  Either way, I'm guilty of disturbing the peace, whether I pick up a guitar and play it, or whether I just decide to get high on nicotine.
    Sometimes, mixing tobacco rips with copious amounts of alcohol can fuck you up so much you pass out.  Blaine always let me sleep on his couch when I got too messed up over there.  The only thing that prevented me from sleeping on his couch more often than I did was his Pit bull, Tobi.  Tobi had a way of inserting himself into my space on the couch in an annoying manner.  Once he was up there with you, he wouldn't budge an inch.  It's hard to sleep when you don't have any leg room.
    The thought of Tobi made Blaine's house an unappealing destination.  I just wasn't in the mood.
    I smelled the whiskey.  I couldn't tell if it was rot gut or scotch.  Perhaps I would have been able to tell had it not been for the unfortunate nose-to-desk incident from my childhood (I spun around in my Dad's office chair repeatedly until I went flying into the corner of his desk.  My nose broke, leaving me with a crooked face for the rest of eternity).
    I wanted to pound the shot.
    There were days when I did pound shots.  Back then, we would chase our shots with soda and tobacco rips.  They went hand in hand.
    We lived in a mobile home park.  We would stay up late, watching Fox News and debating politics.  We had this obsession with forming a libertarian wing of the Republican party, for the good of the country and what not.  Back then we actually believed we had the ability to change things through voting and talking things out in so-called rational discourse.
    But most of the time, he and I were always drunk.  We sort of thought it was funny.  We would walk to and from the yuppie grocery store, throwing a football back and forth.  We'd play catch in the parking lot, forcing the hybrid cars to dodge us before picking up some Ten High or Seagram's 7.
    It was in those days when I first noticed my stomach.  I just woke up one morning and knew it didn't look the same anymore.
    "You're just retaining fluids," he said, and smiled.
    I knew he was full of shit.
    But I didn't care all that much because we were eating lots of healthy foods, and keeping relatively active.
    I woke up one night around three in the morning.  I got out of his bed where I had accidentally crashed. I automatically went for the bottle.  He was asleep on the ground, tossing and turning underneath the computer desk, mumbling unintelligible words to himself.  After I took a couple hits and began the process of packing a fresh tobacco bowl, his speech increased in volume.  I looked over at his closed eyes, his furrowed brow, his screwed up lips and his wrinkled nose as he finally spoke clearly:
    "The Mexicans . . . I'm going to bury them!"
    That was when I realized Libertarianism was going to be a hard sell for the Republican Party, and not the other way around.  I moved out of there after things started getting violent, and moved in with two of my other Libertarian friends.
    Later, after he attempted to kill my father in a drunken fury, I told him to be careful and watch out for cars as he crossed the street in retreat.  I heard he later got sober and turned his life around.  But the alcoholism I inherited from him, as well as his focus on exercise and healthy eating habits were things I took away from my stay in the mobile home park.
    I didn't pound the shot.  I took a tiny sip.  I still couldn't tell if it was any good.  There comes a time in every alcoholic's life when he loses the ability to taste anything at all, but it's not necessarily a bad thing to have no sense of taste.  Honestly, I believe most food is filled with poison.  I try to explain it to people sometimes but they just don't listen.  I gave up on trying to educate people about food because the first thing they say to me is that I'm an asshole with a high metabolism.  I guess nobody should ever try to change anything, or to be the best they can be.  It's a pretty depressing way to see the world, but why else would I be sitting at the bar, sniffing and sipping on a shot glass?  The only logical answer is the answer to the question of the meaning of life itself.