So, yesterday was my birthday, and there was enough interesting occurances. After getting off of work, I made it home just in time for the biggest rainstorm I’ve seen for awhile. Lots of lightning strikes, and enough rainfall to flood the street I live on. Seeing as how I wanted to make my birthday memorable, I strode boldly out into the storm, and proceeded to play in the gutters like a 5 year old. I came back inside after about a half hour, and all I said to my girlfriend was “My sandals are clean now!”
After toweling off, I played around with my son, put him to bed, and got ready to go to the bar. I walked to my usual watering hole, a saloon of “hard times”. I flashed my license to the bartender, and got my first pitcher of beer on the house. There was a pretty fun band playing as I continued to chat with the other patrons, one of which bought me a shot of something that tasted just like Sweet Tarts (I had had a similar shot called a Fucking Awesome, but this was a completely different color; aren’t mystery shots fun?)
There had been a lot of thunderstorms moving throught the area, and another one unbeknownst to me was about to make my night more interesting. During one of my many swigs of beer, the whole place went dark. My first thought? “Oh my god I’ve drank myself blind!!!” But after hearing the music suddenly stop and whoops and hollers from the other patrons, I realized that I had jumped the gun in my assumption. It seems that a storm had knocked out the entire downtown power grid. Lighters and flashlights were lit, along with a few cellphones. The bartender calmly reached below the bar and pulled out enough tealights to light up a million jack-o-lanterns. We proceeded to light up the entire bar with candlelight, along with placing them outside.
That’s what I love about this place; while other bars were closing and kicking out patrons, my second home was ushering the cast out drinkers inside! The population nearly doubled within 15 minutes of the power going out. The band? They pulled out their acoustics and kept the show going! After about an hour and half, right at last call, the lights came back on, and everybody booed. We were having such a great time in the candlelit tavern, but I suppose the lights couldn’t have come on at a better time, much to the dismay of the bartenders, they had to vaccuum after all! I finished off my pitcher, helped pick up, and headed home.
All in all, it was a great night, got the thunderstorm that I wanted, got my drink on, and looked like a fool sitting drenched in the gutter; what more could one ask for?
