Dear Barfly

Yesterday, I drove to Philly to get my taxes done.  I do this every year, because it's what I do.  My accountants father did my parents taxes, and his father did my grandparents taxes in their tiny kitchen, at the same table my grandmother used to sit at and listen to the radio while smoking cigarettes and throwing whatever produce was handy at my uncles. 

This time, there was a backup by the time I got there, so I walked to the Polish butcher down the road for some babka and fresh kielbasa, and then walked to a different Polish butcher for more of the same.  That killed roughly half an hour, so with little other options left, I took a seat at the bar next to my accountants to watch the Flyers game on TV and wait.  I got a grilled cheese and coke and settled in for the inevitable loss that the Broadstreet Bullies were cooking up, and was able to enjoy this midday meal for about thirty seconds before you and your idiot friend at the other end of the bar got louder. 

Your friend, who was obscuring you, must have been going through some sort of midlife crisis, just for the fact that he was dressed like an 18 year old delinquent despite being in his forties.  Obviously, you'd both been drinking for quite some time, even though it was only 2PM on a Saturday.  I only heard you for a bit, until you stood up and blessed us all with your full glory.  Thinning hair dyed jet black and Brylcreemed straight back to a greasy perfection, glasses that were just try to be a bit too hip but that were undermined by the combination of the Flyers sweatshirt that was tucked into your jorts adn the boat shoes you were wearing with socks. 

You both were loudly and obscenely bemoaning your soon to be ex wife, peppering any pause with a phrase meaning "Copulating female dog".  You wished upon her several venereal disease, most of which I am fairly certain you would have been the cause of, and eventually moved on, for some reason fixating on all of the elderly cats in their twenties that you wanted to hit. 

It's not my place to begrudge someone the grieving of their lost marriage.  I have no idea what or if she had done something, or if you were to blame.  That never came up in your ranting and drunken proclamations.  What I do know is that you are a dude in a bar at 2PM, drunk off his ass in a pair of jorts.  I'm thinking you were at least a part of the problem here.  This kind of thing doesn't just start because you were dumped.  She didn't leave you, and you decided it was time to tuck in that stained sweatshirt, hike up those socks, and get thee to a brewery.  Part of that was already there, and damned if it isn't going to help you rake in all those sweet sweet kitty cats you were talking about so vulgarly.