Sunday Funday

Part 1: In which mundane chores become entertaining

I carefully engineered my schedule yesterday to accomplish two tasks in the same window of time. Task 1 was laundry. This task takes some time, as you probably know, but there are a few points along the way where the laundry kind of does itself- long as you’re not using one of those boards which are used primarily as musical instruments nowadays, which, rest assured, I was not.

The first self-sufficient stage is the washing, but I had to be attentive because I wanted to be very fancy and add some fabric softener to my laundry to restore some measure of decency to my life. Why exactly do I need fabric softener to restore decency? Because my sink leaked all over my towels, making them stink perhaps permanently of Wet Towel. Also because my little cat, Panther, has decided for reasons unknown to smite us by peeing on any bag which is left on the floor. So, fabric softener not for spring-like freshness but just hopefully not smelling like mold and pee. Classy.

The second self-sufficient stage is the drying. Thanks to the wonderful laundromat dryers, this step only takes three quarters, or 24 minutes. This period is when I brilliantly engineered the inclusion of step 2: returning my redbox disc (Lost Season 1, Disc 5- my towels stink, my bags have pee on them, and I’m four years behind pop culture; in other words, yes, I am a scientist) to the most proximally available post drop. Thing is, I usually drop my redboxes in the box at Southport and George, so I had no clue in the world where I might be able to post the envelope in the vicinity of the laundromat. The race was on: twenty four minutes to find a mailbox in unfamiliar territory three blocks (!!) from my apartment. Cue dramatic digital clock overlay.

If this day was a very brief episode of ’24,’ and the time when the quarter went in the dryer was zero, then there would have been a dramatic split screen at about ‘5:00.08.’ The split screen would have had in one corner three people wearing Bears jerseys sitting on canvas camp chairs with two dogs in front of a bar that only insiders know as “Katie’s Place.” In another corner, a face-on angle shot of the lovely Brigitte and I walking down the street. In the third, a chalkboard sign advertising $1 burgers w/ purchase of an alcoholic beverage. And in the final corner, a wide shot from the side angle of Brigitte and I . Also visible: the chalkboard from corner three under an awning for “Patsy’s Place” with a solitary, incredibly bored-looking female bartender inside the joint. Tick-tock. Tick-tock.

Two ‘Of course...’ statements:
... I was very interested in $1 burgers.
... since we only had 24 minutes to find a mailbox in unfamiliar lands three blocks from my apartment, there was (cue Bauer voice) NO TIME TO STOP FOR BURGERS! WE’VE GOT TO GO! NOW!

However, during the next three minutes, which would certainly be the commercial time of this particular episode, it was decided by Brigitte and I that we would get burgers after, and only after, finishing tasks 1 & 2.

Minute 10 would appropriately be the climax, the moment that Brigitte spotted a mailbox across the street. Then, at minute 12 enters the conflict, wherein we see a large somewhat unkempt man sitting at a bus stop with three grocery bags at his feet. We will have to somehow get past the fat man, defensive of his groceries as a duck nesting in a hotel planter is of her eggs, in order to get to the mailbox. Tick-tock. Tick-tock. Minute 13 is spent waiting for the lights to change. At minute 14, a bus drives through the intersection, just before the light changes. Brigitte and I pay no heed, but this riles up the fat man. Of course, he was waiting at the bus stop for the bus, which just blasted past him at 35 mph. At minute 15, I commiserate with the fellow about his unfortunate situation, gaining his acceptance and, at minute 16, a clear passage to the mailbox. Success! And the rest of the episode is spent walking back and taking care of all the emotional loose ends from the first part of the show. Also, a little is spent playing Advance Wars 2: Black Hole Rising. Again, yes, I am 4 years behind. However, it does rule.

After much folding and a couple more quarters to thoroughly dry the towels (verdict: fresh!), tasks 1 and 2 are completed. Burger time!

Part 2: In which a mundane dinner becomes bizarrely entertaining

Between taking care of task 2 and finishing task 1, three patrons had gone into Patsy’s to keep the bartender company. Patrons 1 and 2 sat at the end of the bar, two upper30somethingish men who never took their elbows off their bar so their arms would look really big. They drank Stella though, so net manliness: 0. Patron 3 sat alone on the main section of the bar. We’ll call him “Brian.” During the long wait for our burgers to arrive, Brian received a bowl of tomato soup and announced he was going to have some shots. He asked patrons 1 and 2 if they were interested. He proceeded at 5 p.m. on Sunday to order a round of jager bombs for patrons 1-3 and the bartender. Being a man of decency, he paused to toast before taking the shot. However, this is where I first sensed things going awry as two things happened. One, Brian asked patrons 1 and 2 what the shot should be to, and when they said ‘To you for buying the shot, buddy,’ he blew them off. You can’t ask someone else what to toast to then turn it down. The second misstep was his biggest, however, in that when he came up with a toast it was not “To Freedom” as the first shot always should be, but “To Sunday Funday.”

Shortly after our burgers arrived (bleu cheese, no onions, side of tots for Brigitte, jalapeno jack and bacon, side of tots; bacon omitted, tomato and onion omitted; bacon corrected, tomato and onion left off without making a fuss for me), a fourth patron of interest (another foursome had shown up but proved quite inconsequential), we’ll call him “Jeff” also arrived. Upon his arrival, another round of shots was in order. Round 2: five shots to I’m not sure what.

Following round 2, the wheels really came off of our very unassuming Sunday. First, Katie, proprietor of Katie’s Place, the place with the people sitting outside in corner 1 from part 1, could be seen through the open storefront of Patsy’s walking about her side of the street blowing a whistle. Not a long, hard whistle, but a few short, sharp shots. She walked out of the bar and whistled a few times, went back in, came back out, whistled some more, then walked down the street, tapping a closed green-and-white umbrella on the ground. When she returned she was still whistling, but with a yellow lab in tow. This was odd.

At approximately the same time, Jeff tried to convince Brian that, despite the steam rising off his bowl of tomato soup, it was in fact finally at an edible temperature. This was demonstrated first by wolfing down three spoonfuls in four seconds, much like how the Businessman eats cereal, and second by sticking the tip of his tongue directly into the middle of the soup. Being convinced and fond of his friend’s spit, Brian finally tried the soup. He promptly declared it too sugary and decided the remedy for sugary soup was more shots.

By this point Brian and Jeff were aware that we were paying some attention to them, as Jeff apologized to us after sucking up his friend’s soup. And so we were tapped to join them for round 3: four O-bombs and something brown for Jeff. Brian rudely toasted Brigitte and myself “To Sunday Funday” (again!) without Jeff, who was on his phone, and without the bartender, who was elsewhere, and then ridiculed me for finishing slowly when I was just trying to wait to get everyone involved.

After round 3, Jeff stepped outside of Patsy’s to talk on his phone. To be clear, across the street from Patsy’s in Katie’s Place. (Lest you think we have some kind of battling Places thing going on, Patsy’s is to Katie’s as Chicago is to Detroit- maybe not the most glorious but at least modern and at least it tries- so they clearly have different clientele.) There were still people in Bears jerseys outside of Katie’s, and Jeff got into some kind of exchange with them. This lead, not logically, but still somehow, into Jeff throwing one of his flip-flops across the very busy street after he was off his phone. One of these men, we’ll call him “John,” picked up the sandal which had somehow not hit a car on its flight over and brought it back across the street, walking right out in front of a cop car while doing so.

Before I introduce John, allow me to give him some inferred character.

Facts about Katie’s Place:

Numerous beer signs out front, but no signage indicating the name
May or may not have been mentioned in the book “There Are No Children Here:” the name is right but the location is wrong.
The human:dog ratio inside the bar may at times slip below 1.
It is inhabited by 6 types of people:

1. Katie, the somewhat older proprietor of her namesake establishment.
2. Grisly neighborhood social alcoholics with dogs.
3. Middle aged men who live above the bar.
4. Lawyers of the middle aged men who live above the bar.
5. Myself and my friends Chris and Rosie after we’ve been drinking for 8 hours and think stopping at the townie looking place with the Old Style and Kaliber signs will be fun.
6. Brigitte after meeting up with Chris, Rosie and I, but having not had anything to drink yet, who, when tasked with getting us pitchers for cheaper than $12, gets herself loaded on shots from the types 2-4 of people at the bar but does not manage to get free or discounted pitchers. (She then goes on to make friends with a table of people at the nearby greasy spoon because they haven’t seen Swingers but still like Vince Vaughan, a smart choice because she gets some of their chili spaghetti out of it. I cannot believe she ate someone else’s food. That is moderately uncharacteristic of her.)

John would be an awesome subtype the the third type of person who inhabits Katie’s: the British guy who lives above the bar subtype. For sake of honesty, he was not the type three who previously employed the services of type four.

After John returned Jeff’s sandal to him, Jeff treated him like a good dog by petting him on the head and saying “good boy.” John was too drunk and english to take insult at this, but it did confuse him. After making a small mockery of him Jeff invited John in to the bar for a drink, saying “We’ll show you a real good time in here.” What Jeff and Brian proceeded to show John was low-grade humiliation stemming entirely from the fact that John was drunk and British. For instance, John retold the story of running across the road to return Jeff’s shoe. Some might say, well, while that was kind of silly and running out in front of a car, let alone a cop, was downright reckless, that was a rather kind thing to do. I would agree. Jeff and Brian would not think this commendable, rather they would find it very entertaining for its dog-like ‘fetch’ attributes. Another for instance: John was clearly from England. I’ve made this point before. We all speak english, go us, but as everyone knows we don’t always call things by the same name. To some, this would be at most an interesting point of divergent cultures. To Jeff and Brian, they almost fell out of their seats laughing when John called the sandal a “slipper.” To be fair, however, he would not stop saying the word slipper, to the point that even I found it amusing, both for the repetition and also for the Higher Order comedy of being able to anticipate a) that he’d say it, b) that they’d laugh, and finally c) that he’d look bewildered by it.

This whole exchange then led to Brian reprimanding Jeff for being an idiot, and to show his disproval he took Jeff’s slippers and attempted to punt them across the street while standing in the bar. The bartender did not appreciate this very much. Eventually Brian bought John a drink and they talked about how drunk they all were, and they made fun of John for wearing a Cedric Benson jersey. At this point we acquired bill because this Sunday Funday was too much to handle.

We said our due thanks to Brian for getting us the O-bombs (Jeff was gone at this point to change out of what Brian deemed to be unacceptable attire), but not to be outdone by our departure or the John hijinx, however, Brian wanted to have a brief chat with us. He stood up and grabbed the one remaining shot on the bar (the bartender left her round 3 untaken). He touched each of us on the shoulder with his free hand and said “Ok, look at me both of you. Ok, now relax your eyes. Relax, all the way.” I was then momentarily engaged in a conversation with John, who said “Buckberry what’s that?” “Oh, it’s a band, Buckcherry.” (It was on my shirt) “Oh, well I’m a big fan of Oasis.” “Yeah, hey they haven’t done much lately have they.” “They have a new record actually.” We bantered back and forth a couple more lame lines, during which time Brian had time to ask Brigitte “Is this guy your boyfriend?” When I turned back to the group Brian raised his glass to make a toast.

I prepared to celebrate Sunday Funday once again as Brigitte and I watched empty-handed and relaxedly. “I hope someday I have what you two have.”

And then he took his shot while we had nothing to do but stand there veeeeeery uncomfortably.