Pimpin' Ain't Easy

 
To Zach Johnson, who would have wanted me to record my street life adventures.

I do not drink like I used to. It just does not fit with being a responsible parent. However, I do occasionally permit myself the luxury of stopping at the local tavern for Happy Hour on Friday after work. That is what I did today.

It started out as an ordinary visit. I sat down at the bar and started schmoozing with one of the regulars. After I drank half of my first beer, I went out to the patio to smoke a cigarette. Two women were sitting at a table near the door. It was the only table I saw that had an ashtray, so I asked the women if I could sit with them. They told me to go ahead.

Just after I lit my cigarette, a man walked up to the patio from the parking lot. He was quite angry and asked one of the women "What the fuck is you doin'?" He jumped over the rail of the fence that went around the patio. The man pointed at me and asked the woman "Is this him?" The woman told him no, so he asked "Is he in there?" He opened the door to the bar and told the woman to tell him where to find the other man before he made a scene. She told him that the other man had already left. The man then ordered the woman to come with him and get in the car.

After they left, the woman's friend, Sara, explained what had just happened. She said that her friend had met up with an old boyfriend there at the bar. She had meant to send a text message to Sara explaining that the man she was talking to at the bar was an old boyfriend and that her current boyfriend, Anton, would flip if he knew she was talking to an old boyfriend. Instead, she accidentally sent the text message to Anton, prompting him to come back to the bar. Anton had dropped his girlfriend at the bar, telling her not to flirt with any guys.

I told Sara that this story reminded me of a passage in The Bonfire of the Vanities, in which the main character left his fancy Manhattan apartment to call his new mistress on a pay phone and ended up calling his own wife. Sara laughed at this and said "Yes, the universe directs us." Shortly after this Pauline, the bartender and a few other people came out on the patio and asked what was going on. Sara explained it to them. Sara told Pauline that she would take care of her friend's tab. Pauline expressed astonishment that the woman would continue to date such a man and volunteered to text her to see if she was okay.

After some conversation and video trivia and another beer, I went back outside to smoke another cigarette. On my way out I told Grant, Pauline's husband, about how Anton had asked his girlfriend if I was the other man. "Ha! Skinny old white guy, huh?" Grant laughed. Another guy at the bar commented "Hey, pimpin' ain't easy."
A little later Anderson told me that they would start calling me SWG, for Skinny White Guy. I told him that should be OSWG, for Old Skinny White Guy. Grant told me that if I wanted to sit with the old guys, I would have to be at least 60. I told him that I will be 52 in a couple of weeks.

I got a little adrenaline rush when Anton asked "Is this him?" It has been many years since anyone thought me capable of stealing his woman.