Another highlight from our holiday was our evening out with Patrick, of the McNeilorama Comments Hall of Fame.

We went to a bar down town. It’s the kind of bar in which one might run into miscellaneous high school acquaintances and in which one may drink 60 different types of beer in order to earn a metal stein which than hangs conveniently from the ceiling for one’s future drinking pleasure.

We sat in the bar, had a couple of tasty beverages, and watched the bowl game over the bartender’s shoulder while chatting about various topics, primarily the many antics of Andy and Patrick’s high school and college days. When we were nearing the end of round 2, the man next to Andy tapped him on the shoulder and said, “Excuse me, are you guys planning to leave soon? I don’t want to rush you, but we would like your seats.”

What? Uhh. . . we don’t really know umm. . . do you guys want to . . . uh. . .

At around the same time, open mic night commenced. We talked to the “I don’t want to rush you but” guy for a few minutes - mostly because he was insistently offering us a round on him for being so rude (it really was rude, but he clearly didn’t mean it that way - he felt REALLY bad). Then we decided that our time had come and perhaps we could find a cup of coffee somewhere.

We went to the coffee shop. It looked open, so we went in, and it was open - they were selling t-shirts and mugs and whatnot, but as it turns out, they were closing, and open mic night had just ended. The owner advised us that while they were indeed closing, she knew that some people were heading over to the bar (from whence we came), because they have an open mic night over there. That’s right – the open mic participants were headed down town to open mic participate again. How about that? Apparently Andy’s home town has an artists’ community of roving open micers. We wondered if Thursday was open mic night throughout the town and if so, when and where does it start, what stops does it make, and does it ever end?

Without a coffee shop to turn to, we went to another bar and spent the next half hour or so trying to figure out how best to steal the Christmas tree (which was full-sized, fully decorated, lit, and plugged in - and which, of course, we had no intention of stealing). I thought I could unplug it, lay it down, and then slide it out somehow. Pat & Andy suggested that I quickly hurl it through the window when no one was looking. Too bad the open mic tour wasn’t there yet (or had already been there?) - a little entertainment would have been just the distraction I needed to pull it off.