Chicken Tikka Masala, Prairie Fires and Pool

Chicken Tikka Masala, Prairie Fires and Pool

Me: Okay I'm getting off the phone, I have to go eat.
Mike: Yeah me too.
Me: What are you eating? Or rather, what are you ordering?
Mike: I don't know. Want to go get some saag paneer?
Me: YES!!!!!!!
Mike: You didn't even have to think about that.
Me: Not even a bit.

I am so easy. Food is a more than adequate motivator to get me to go to just about anything. I've been to baby showers, weddings, engagement parties, bar mitzvahs, birthday parties you name it... all for the food.

After dinner, Mike and I were waddling back to the car when we passed a little pub. The pool table beckoned, I'd been fiending to play ever since I played with Paul last week. So we walk into this joint, which is unpretentious (meaning cheap liquor) and underpopulated (meaning cheap liquor, fast.) What's not to like? The only blemish was this absurd couple in their late 50's sitting at the bar. I say "absurd" because it's absurd to be in your late 50's and sitting at a bar, licking someone. The woman was large-breasted and wearing a low-cut top that was stretched so tight I could hear it screaming in its little lycra voice, "Help me!!!!!" The man was bald and wearing an outfit that wasn't bad per se, but elicited a few "You need to find a younger master" comments from the other outfits in the room.

Oh and did I mention they kept licking each other? I didn't think it could get worse than that but the highly disgusted bartender told us after they left that she was forced to listen to their dialogue, which was straight out of a 70's porn flick. "I so need you." But it was to be expected, they set off everyone's affair-dar the moment their tongues made their first public appearance.

So we moseyed pass the gruesome twosome and surveyed the pool table area. Just as I suspected, the players (Jake, another Mike, John and I am reaching for the last name) were all local and all really good at pool. But we're sticklers for punishment so we stacked our quarters by the side and awaited our turn. Mike and I were pretty awful at first, so we did a couple prairie fires. Don't forget to use Riss Math when you read that equation. A couple means a couple for Mike and a couple, couple of shots for me.

Mike (whispering like he was afraid it was a billing mistake): Riss, Guinness here is only 4 dollars. Next door it's 8.
Me: Well then we know where we'll be going from now on don't we?

Jake (great name) said he didn't understand how we could play better AFTER doing shots of tequila. But then again, he didn't realize yet that he was talking to the same idiot who went snowboarding for the first time, slid down the mountain on her ass a few times, went into the ski tent, did like 6 shots of Cuervo then came out and flew down the mountain like it was nobody's business. It's the whole invincibility factor. Pool is just confidence and geometry. It was a good night, we met a great crowd of people who were very unlike the usual snotty fucks that infest Hoboken bars like the plague.

And.... I'd be remiss if I didn't throw a shoutout to Mike, for his exemplary parallel parking job, into a teeny little space, being that it had been a long while since he had done it. Yes, we are still talking about parking cars.

Mike: YES!!!!!!!! I so rock!!
Me: Yes you do.
Mike: Dude if I were on a date, I would so earn brownie points for this.
Me: Yes you would.
Mike: I just turned myself on, I totally want to have sex with myself right now.
Me: You need an excuse for that?
Mike: Well... no.
Me: Hey look at that sign... "Resident Parking Only"
Mike: I guess that's why no one parked here.
Me: If you were on a date then you would have gained brownie points for the parking job, then lost them because you can't read.
Mike: Yeah.