This is me, by the way, taken last summer.

Moving on.

Last night, even though I am coming down with something horrible, Lynn and I decided to go to the mall and do some Christmas shopping and then head out to the bar for a few drinks. The shopping was fun and I was able to get my daughter some really cool things. Then, we went to the bar.

Feeling old, we couldn't even decide where to go. For one thing, we usually go out with our husbands so it was kind of fun and new to go out by ourselves. Not that we haven't done it LONG before James and Shawn existed, but it has been a while. Anyway, we decided to check out Bubba's, a new "bar and grill" that just sprouted up in our town.

We knew we made a mistake the minute we got out of the car because we could hear the music thumping and we both began giggling like crazy. Lynn said, "One drink! We can do it, one drink!" I agreed, and in we went.

We were then greeted by an overzealous security guard who locked eyes with Lynn and declared that he knew her from high school. He kept asking her if she remembered him, which she didn't. He was holding on to her license, staring at her and saying stupid shit, while I stood next to her holding out my license. Which he never even looked at. He told her, "You're just as pretty as you were in high school," which I thought was a really cool thing to say, even though the fucker was ignoring me. (See previous post. I am used to it.) He made comments about her being married, etc and finally we got a seat. He had shown her his ID so she knew who he was, and she said, "He doesn't look anything like he did in high school, but I can tell he's still psycho." I nodded and we sipped our beers as we watched young 18 year old girls in barely a stitch of clothing dance and strut around each other. It was painful for me to be in there, because I cannot say how much I absolutely despise that scene. She does too, so we were both kind of giggling and giving dirty looks and trying to drink our beers really fast when Security Guy came up to Lynn again, talking to her and interrupting our conversation. In restrospect, I should have said, "Excuse me? We're trying to have a conversation here and you're being a rude fucker. Would you kindly go away before I let your boss know you're harassing the customers?" I didn't, but Lynn and I have an unspoken rule about going out together that we have always followed: Thou must have thy girlfriend's back at all times and at any cost. That means that if someone is talking to her, I am on the lookout and pay very close attention. She does the same for me, and I will get to that in a minute.

So anyway, while Security Guy was drooling all over her and disrespecting the fact that she had on her wedding rings, I watched him closely. Call me paranoid, but I trust no one. Eventually, he went away and we rolled our eyes and finished our beers. We left that hellhole and went to a Cheers type bar that is right across the street. I like it there. There's not a lot of young kids and the people there are pretty much regulars. The owner tends bar and is strict with her rules,which is good. There is a pool table, a jukebox, and a way to play Keno. That's it.

So, we go in there, sit at the bar, and order a couple of drinks. Sitting at the end of the bar is an older lady that Lynn has talked to before. We talk to her for a minute and I like her immediately, even though I can tell she not only has a drinking problem but probably mental health issues as well. I'll call her Karen. We talk to her for about fifteen minutes and then this guy bursts in, loudly declaring that he got kicked out from the place next door. Lynn asks him if he means the barbershop, and Karen and I start laughing. The guy, who I'll call Keith, starts laughing too and says no, it was the VFW and they were having a private party, but he didn't think it would be a big deal because "they love him over there." Lynn and I start laughing and she asks him if he is a VFW member, and he says yes. She asks him his name and he tells her. She then laughingly demands to see his VFW card. "I think you're lying. I think you tried to crash the party," she teases.

He produces the card which is legitimate, and then we kick back and have good conversation, Karen, Lynn, Keith and I. Everyone is laughing and I start to relax. Just as this happens, this old, old man comes and sits down next to Karen. Lynn and I introduce ourselves and he says his name is Tim. We like him at first, because he's older than my father (68) and because he appears intelligent. He tells Lynn how beautiful she is and she tells him she likes his hat. The jokes go on and we have a good time. Suddenly, I notice that Keith is sitting awful close to me, kind of pushing against me, and since we are on barstools it's almost impossible for me to scoot over. I try anyway, and then he starts telling me I have beautiful eyes, beautiful hair, I am just beautiful. I say thank you and blush. Lynn hears the conversation and starts giggling madly because this guy is a lot older than me and obviously intoxicated. It's funny because this always happens to me. The weirdos and drunks always hit on me, without exception. I don't know why. I just seem to draw in those kinds of people.

Then he starts hugging me and pulling me close to him and I keep trying to pull away. It's still funny and I am still laughing, but now I am pretty uncomfortable. I don't like strange people touching me. Lynn, who, thank God, was sitting right next to me, told him he had better knock it off. He then declared, "But I love her. I love people. I love real fucking people man, and she's real." We both started laughing hysterically which made him laugh, but he did not understand why we were laughing. "I'm serious. She is so beautiful. She's so damn pretty and a real woman." We were practically pissing in our pants we were laughing so hard. I know I was crying at this point, laughing so hard I was crying. He was like, "What? She's a beautiful woman. A big and beautiful woman." At this point I stop laughing and Lynn makes a sound like, "ooooh," under her breath. He keeps going. "She's beautiful and she's big! She loves it! You know you love it," he said as he pulled me closer to him. "I just want to kiss her. I just want to stick my tongue down her throat, in her ear, everything."

Lynn said, "Keith, if you don't let go of my girl, I'm going to kick your ass and I'm not playing with you. I am not joking. Let her go." He started arguing with her and Lynn was like, "She's a beautiful woman, not a big beautiful woman, and what you just said was rude and wrong and I'm telling you right now to let go of her. I mean it." He apologized and let me go and to tell the truth, I wasn't really mad at him. He was just some pathetic drunk guy that happened to come to the bar the same night I was. It's just that I know a lot of people put me in that category, and I can't tell you how much I hate it. When I get hit on, it's always by some asshole that has to make a comment about "liking big women." I cannot describe to anyone how much that hurts or how humiliating it is if you do not embrace that label. Like it or not, "big woman" is my master status right now. Lynn understands because, as I said in my previous post, she lost 80 pounds a few years ago on her own. She has always been beautiful regardless of her weight, but it was a personal decision for her. So she knows how that feels. Thank God she was there.

I wanted to cry but didn't, and Keith felt bad although he didn't know why, and I didn't bother to explain. I just told him not to say things like that unless he is sure that the woman he is saying it to will not be turned off by it. Just then, some other guy showed up, I'll call him Lee, who planted himself next to Lynn. He was a business owner and he and Lynn began having a business conversation which I found boring so I talked to Karen for a while. Tim was standing up at the other end of the bar, ordering a beer. Lee got up to go to the bathroom and when he did, Tim went up to Lynn and started, again, telling her how beautiful she was, that he loved her eyes, and began kind of tickling her. She was laughing but told him to stop. He was a drunk old man, and after telling him a few times to (laughingly) quit it, I grabbed her and pulled her close to me, away from Tim, and made a few lewd comments about us spending the night together. Tim left and Lee came back. I tried to join in the conversation with them, but every time I said something, Lee dismissed me. I got very pissed off but said nothing. People continued to play pool and the jukebox, and I talked to Karen some more. Keith left me alone for the most part, but stayed friendly without being touchy feely. At some point, I overheard Lynn say, "Well, you see, you can afford to hire me." (Long story but she is awesome business minded person and is also very successful at it.) Lee replied, "I can't hire you." Lynn asked, "Why?" Lee said, "Because I'd be thinking about making love to you all day long." I snorted into my beer and Lynn took it like a champ. I think she just totally blew the comment off. However, I think that comment creeped me out more than Keith did.

Just then, a ruckus between Keith and another guy erupted over the use of the pool table and Keith, who was obviously well known, was told to sit down at the bar and go nowhere else. We began talking about his daughter (who is 25) and the fact that she was going to have a baby. I couldn't help but feel sorry for him. I could see, and I told Lynn this later, that in his sober mind he was probably a pretty good guy, a smart and fun one. Unfortunately, that's what happens when alcohol takes over.

After a few minutes of conversation, he threw his arm around me again and attempted to kiss me. I cringed and turned the other way, toward Lynn, who saw it happen. His sloppy kiss landed on my neck. She smacked him as hard as she could on the hand---it was loud, everyone in the bar heard it. He was like, "Oww! What the hell was that?"

"That was God," Lynn said ominously.

Eventually, we left, but not before I had to listen to that fag Lee whine about Lynn being married. Her wedding band was on the whole night. He kept talking about how depressed he was about that. She called James to check in, and this rude asshole kept saying, "Is that your husband? Is that your husband?" over and over again. Now, if you know James, you know that is the wrong thing to do. As with any person, he has his faults but he is seriously protective of his family. He didn't make a big deal out of it, since he knew we were going to leave soon. But not before Keith got kicked out of the bar for telling the owner she "can't fucking tell me who I can and can not talk to." He stormed out and we left. I got home at the ungodly hour of sometime after two, and my sweet and loving husband made me something to eat while I lay in bed. He wasn't happy about me being mauled, either. I wonder how he's going to feel when I lose 150 pounds. LOL.

Lesson Learned: I am old. I am not fun anymore. I would rather drink beer with old friends than new ones. Drunk guys are dumb at any age. I love jukebox music a lot better than shit like, "My Humps." God help us all. The End.