Simmer Down

What happens when a lonesome imbiber meets three hockey players at a crowded bar?

Image credit: Photo by smoorenburg via Creative Commons

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Spazz Dad: Across the Great Divide

By: Todd Smith

Last Saturday night, I met my brother Tony and my friend Mark at the Pig and Fiddle pub at 50^th and France. The place was packed. There were three separate holiday parties carousing about and all the tables were filled with weary shoppers and various revelers. We took two seats at the bar and had a few pints.

The older man sitting to my left at the bar was a balding George Costanzia look alike. He was by himself and sat there cruising Facebook on his iPad while the entire pub swirled around him.  He flagged a bartender down and ordered a pint of beer. Then he rejected the beer because it had too much foam. I noticed that the pint was perfectly fine and was merely a nice stout with a thin layer of creamy foam. The man got a new pint and annoyingly smirked at the bartender.

Near 11 o’clock, the place was buzzing. Tony, Mark and I are on the same hockey team (Dudeface) and we were discussing the hilarious features of our team’s potential website, online features such as “Worst Goal Award” and a fun game called “Who shit in my helmet?” In the course of trading a few stories, all three of us lightly peppered our tales with a few f-bombs. Nothing gratuitous. Nothing out of the ordinary. Just a few “fockers” dropped into some stories on a Saturday night in a pub.

Meanwhile, as the bar grew more crowded and louder, the George Costanzia guy next to me kept trying to join in on our conversation. But we all ignored him because we didn’t want to engage the lonely and downright creepy old white dork at the bar. But he wouldn’t be ignored. He finally piped in and said, “Excuse me. Do you guys know any words other than ‘fuck’?”

“Excuse me?” Tony casually answered the guy.

“You’re cursing too much,” the guy said snidely. “How about a little civility?”

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Tony said, laughing, “I didn’t see that the bar was filled with children.”

“I’m tryyyying to read,” the guy responded. Facebook was still pulled up on his iPad.

Now, I took a split second to access the situation before I reacted to this man: It was past 11 o’clock…on a Saturday night…in a bar…that was packed with people guzzling booze. If a person truly wanted to have a nice quiet evening of reading why would they choose a crowded bar at night during the holidays? I answered my own question in my head. Fock this guy.

So, I turned around in my stool and silently stared at the guy. For several long seconds, I just stared.

“Let me guess,” The man said, “F-me right?”

“Pretty much,” I said.

+ Spazz Dad Todd Smith's columns appear in each issue of METRO. He blogs whenever the mood strikes for metromag.com. Read more of his work here.