I Have The Bartender's Clothes But No Bartender

Stuck in Denver with no place to go (Please See Exhibit A and Exhibit B for further explanation) and out of luck for the moment I opt for comfort food.  I come from Aspen, the love child that was born when Sodom and Gomorra went out drinking with the Land of Milk and Honey and just happened to have an unprotected good time.  In other words, because I spend my life in a  hedonistic winter playground for adults, my comfort food is anything that is not celebrated by Bon Appetite or Food and Wine, is not frequented by Paris Hilton or Kate Hudson and is decidedly not creative or progressive.  Comfort food is mainstream America at its finest.  I can order $2.95 tasters and cheap wine in Cherry Creek (an upscale enclave in Denver populated by hipster yuppies, desperate housewives and grey flannel suite wearing execs – all with crunchy-hippie yearnings), just as easily as I can in Cleveland.

I belly up to the bar and order a satisfyingly cheap glass of Zig Zag Zin and a basil, tomato and goat cheese pizza.  And then it commences.  My obsessive compulsive, psychoanalysis of my fellow Brio patrons.  There are the requisite business travelers.  A 30-something woman in a power suit who looks like she over-compensates for being a woman in Corporate America by being a raging bitch.  There’s a member of the grey flannel mafia hunched over a scotch on the rocks and studying the melting ice cubes in his highball glass.  There’s the brassy-haired blond behind the bar who probably escaped from St. Louis as soon as she got the chance.  And then there’s the bar clown.  Every bar has one.  He was the loveable funny guy in high school and has never really grown up.  His apartment likely has Chili Peppers posters and remote control cars strewn around despite the fact that he’s old enough to have a big-boy job and an apartment that is more Pottery Barn than Kappa Sig; or at least responsibilities greater than showing up to the bar in time for his 4 PM shift.  I’m intrigued by him though and throw him a wry smile.

He and the brassy blond and debating who gets to leave early on account of the snow.  They decide to Rock Paper Scissors for it.

“I can beat anyone in this bar in Rock Paper Scissors,” the clown puffs out his chest.

“That’s a bold statement.”   This seems to offend him.

“Well then let’s go kiddo.”

I throw paper.  I always throw paper first.  It’s easy.  Just a flat hand stretched out in front.  My paper covers his rock.

“All right it was just luck.  Let’s go best two out of three.”

My scissors beat his paper.  Sweet victory.

Less than 24 hours later, Mr. Rock-Paper-Scissor’s clothes would be in my car.  Alone.  Without their rightful owner.  How did he get away with no clothes you might ask?  Well the night didn’t end up like that.   What kind of girl do you take me for?  So how did I end up with three brand new shirts from Brooks Brother, a Nordstrom bag full of socks and two news ties of unknown designer origin?  Some things in life are just a mystery.

I returned said bag to the hostess stand with a polite note reading, “So sorry I had to leave quickly last night.  Thanks for a great evening!  Good luck in all future endeavors.  (970) 319-4810.  Kate.”   Four hours later I was almost back to Aspen and my phone rang.  Little did I know I had recruited a stage five clinger.  He would proceed to call me daily for the next three weeks.  He didn't stop until i threatened a restraining order.  Well actually that's not true.  But it would have been funny if it was, huh?

Dive Bars Defined: Hey Sweet Tits Can I Buy You A Drink?

Since I mentioned seedy, hole-in-the-wall dive bars previously I feel compelled to further define said establishments.  Once upon a time, someone is Aspen defined the eatery Little Annies as a dive bar.  I laughed in their face.  Literally.  If you are not familiar with the establishment please look it up.  It may not be Spago, but it certainly is not a dive bar. 

A dive bar must be a place that you would never, under any circumstances, feel comfortable taking your children.  The floor must be so sticky with spilled beer, human fluids and decades-old dirt that no toddler should crawl upon it.  The booths must be so unstable that one dare not place a car seat atop it.  The bathroom graffiti must be so vulgar that you would be ashamed to allow you seven year-old to read it. 

A dive bar must be a place so libertarian (at least) and anarchical (at best) that all rules of decorum, religion and government are flagrantly ignored.  Cussing like a sailor in the presence of the elderly is permitted (but not in front of the kids because remember, there are none).  Spitting inside is tolerated.  Drinking on the Lord’s Day is admired (Sunday Funday).  Smoking is allowed despite, or perhaps in spite of, laws against it. 

A dive bar must have cheap drink specials.  These may include but are by no means limited to Ladies Night, Margarita Madness, $2 drafts, $2 shots, all-you-can-drink pitchers, Insert Favorite Sports Team Here Fans Drink When Insert Start Player Here Scores and my personal favorite – Dollar Night. This may be $1 well drinks, $1 beers, $1 shots or $1 anything.  But the concept is simple. For $20 I should be able to kill myself with booze.

A dive bar must have at least one full-fledged bar fight a week.  And by bar fight I mean fists flying, bottles breaking, stools overturning and windows shattering.  Extra dive bar points are awarded if the cops come, if chicks are involved and if Chuck Norris mysteriously shows up to roundhouse kick his way through the door.

A dive bar must have at least three down-and-outs bellied up to the bar at any given moment.  Depending on the demographic composition of the region and the geographic area of the country, these might be laid off steel workers, black lung infected coal miners, downtrodden cotton farmers, off-season cowboys or illegal immigrants.  Also depending on demographic composition and geographic region, said patrons must be hunched over a bottle of Jim, Jack, Johnnie or Jose, a shot class and a can of Bud, PBR, Coors, Natty or Modelo. 

A dive bar must have at least one questionable character who addresses any good looking woman (and by good looking I mean she has tits the hang above her belly button, a ass that stays above her knees and all her teeth) as, “Hey sweets tits can I buy you a drink?"

Hey Life...I Win

Nothing liked getting kicked when you’re down.  I mean really shoved face down in the muddy roadside ditch of life.  Curb stomped when you’re already on your knees.  And then kicked in the ribs one more time, just for good measure.

Well I was there.  And I lived to tell about.

I am an overeducated, rich, upper middle class white girl; blogging on my Mac Book Pro and 1 AM, drinking cheap red wine and living the dream in Aspen because I don’t have to get a job in the midst of the so-called Great Recession.  I am yuppie spawn.  Full of the appropriate proportions of self-loathing, self-righteousness, narcissism, and trite clichés about my existential angst and metaphysical confusion.  My kind seems to love nothing more than to whine about how hard our lives are and how much pressure we feel from our yuppie parents to succeed.

Still, being considered a failure unless you are a high school and college valedictorian, Phi Beta Kappa, Rhodes Scholar, J.D, PhD, M.D., MBA, M.A. and Supreme Court Justice is a rough road to drive down.  And after twenty-three years of it, I cracked.

I quite my high(ish)-paying big-girl job, packed up a duffel bag and got on a plane to Aspen.  I didn’t tell my parents about any of this until I was in DIA, lest they dissuade me from throwing away my life and undermining my potential.

And for the time being this Band-aid worked.  I was able to pretend that I was the pot-smoking, drop-out ski bum that the rich people I served in Aspen thought I was.  I thought I had it all.  And then Prince Charming skied down the mountain one day in the form of a ski-patrolling, fire-fighting, river-guiding mountain man.  And then I really did have it all – the glam local, the fun job, the cool friends and the ruggedly handsome mountain man.  He was everything that I thought I needed to complete my mountain picture.  I actually let down my guard for the first time ever.  People who know me know what a big deal that is.

And then he decided that he didn’t love me anymore.  And that maybe he never had.

Shit.

My plan at world domination was failing.  My mountain dream unraveled.  The glamorous little place called Aspen became just another town.  Skiing every day lost its charm.  The bar stopped being mountain-town cool and became just another dive bar.  If I was cracked before, now I was Humpty-fucking-Dumpty when all the king’s horses and all the king’s men couldn’t superglue his ass back together again.

Just for good measure, life kept on kicking my butt even though I was already curb stomped to the ground.  Every time I tried to get up onto my knees again, I fell back down.

On an airplane halfway between Denver and Quito, Ecuador I decided to get back up.  For real this time.  It took some doing but, much like straining and wasting energy trying to grab the next hold on a rock wall, I finally got it, even though it was ugly getting there.

Now, somewhere in the middle of BFE, in the South Dakota prairie I realize that I’m alive.  Really alive and living life on my own terms and by my own rules.  I actually look genuinely happy. 

I played a game with life called I Win.  And I won.

Driving I-70 (Also: Running The Colorado Winter Road Gauntlet)

For the second (or is it third) time this week I hucked my pack into my Red Rocket, an ’05 Subaru, and joined the jihad of Weekend Warriors to the ski resorts of central Colorado in their descent to Denver on the dreaded I-70 corridor.  I-70 is a daily battle between overly confident Coloradans, overly paranoid tourists and long haul truckers who could give a shit about anyone because they’re the biggest thing on 18 wheels.  The Coloradans, thinking nothing of doing 85 in a snowstorm, over 10,000-foot Vail Pass around the bends and twists of I-70, terrify the white-knuckle tourists whose license plates are routinely from Arizona, South Carolina or Texas (sorry T$, not you).  Woe is he who is caught in a swarm of Texans in a snowstorm.  A black Escalade in front, an 18-wheeler to the right and a Tahoe behind.   All bearing the blue star and cowboy on a horse that brand the loud-voiced, boot-wearing, big-haired virgins to snow driving.  Rather than maintain a logical distance between cars and pursue a consistent speed, the Texan muscles through in their outsize SUV and then slams on the brakes when they near the unsuspecting car in front of them.  For this reason, 30-car pileups are not uncommon along the I-70 gauntlet.

Despite being a Midwestern transplant to Colorado I crank up my Credence on my iPod and ignore the pending disaster around me.  After all, I learned to drive in Cleveland.  And the Cleveland driver thinks nothing of scraping a 4 by 4 holes in the ice on their windshield and hoping behind the wheel with the defrost cracked all the way up.  Who needs to actually see the road?  It’s all drive by feel in Cleveland.  The idiot factor on I-70 is the highest I’ve seen it all season.  There is no snow.  Literally, no snow.  Not a dusting.  Not the remnants of a snowstorm.  No snow.  Dry roads.  Yet, in preparation for the promised upslope storm (comes from the east), CDOT already has chain laws in effect for Vail Pass and truckers are diligently slinging 20 pound chains around their drive wheels.  Of course the Texans have to slow to a crawl to observe (or oversee perhaps) this activity.  Somehow one such driver finds a way to smash his SUV into a parked semi chaining up.  Like I said, the idiot factor is at an all-season high today thanks to increased Easter traffic.

Since it’s Colorado in the springtime, we think nothing of the fact that it was 72-degrees and sunny at 9 AM and that now, at 6 PM, husky snowflakes have begun to drip down on the city of Denver like Cinnabon frosting.  I have a smattering of friends, both old and new, to grab drinks with.  Crashing on one of these couches won’t be a problem.  I call Lauren.  We’ve been great friends since we were five years old and are supposed to grab dinner and drinks. 

“I’m stuck on the highway.” She’s pissed.

“36 hasn’t moved in the last 40 minutes.  I actually put my car in park and started reading my book.” 

“No worries.  Just call me when you make it back.”

I call Amber, my friend from the mountains.  She’s in the wine business and regularly runs the I-70 gauntlet.

“They closed I-70 at Eisenhower Tunnel.  I can’t stand this road.  And the moron factor is out of control today.  I think I might just die.  Right here.”  Amber tends to be theatrical.  That’s why I love her.  It keeps life interesting.

“No worries.  Just call me when you make it back.”  Déjà vu?

Lauren texts me.  I’m running out of gas.  My light came on 30 minutes ago.  Help?!  I tell here to drive in the emergency lane.  Sounds like an emergency to me right?  CDOT would be ticked if her dead car blocked a lane of the Boulder Highway.

I try Whitney.  She and Lauren and I are all native Clevelanders.  Transplants to Colorado.   We drove west on I-80 until we hit the mountains and decided to stop there.  Her phone’s off.  “Shit.”  She is still on the plane and the prospects for DIA actually staying open are not looking good.  The Frosty Flakes have laid down about 8 inches in two hours.

My phone beeps again.  Lauren.  I am in some random girl’s car.  Will probably sleep at B’s tonight.  So sorry.  Highway closed.

I’m not surprised.  Rather than deal with the idiot factor, CDOT usually elects to shut down entire highways to deal with snow removal.  Eisenhower Tunnel usually shuts down because of avalanche risk.  The roads around Denver and Boulder usually shut down because of idiot risk.

Sleeping In My Car Behind The Denver Country Club

Denver.  March 2010.  A snowstorm has crippled my evening plans and left me momentarily friendless, homeless and without plans.  I do what any good Midwesterner would do and head to a comfortingly nondescript, mediocre chain restaurant.

My new friends Dane and Britney spend the next twenty minutes or so trading quips and anecdotes with me about what it means to grow up Midwestern and bond about how wonderful Colorado is.  They are both born and raised in the great state of Ohio as well.  Just like in the movies.  Whenever someone has moved from somewhere terrible to somewhere wonderful, they always come from Ohio.  Food for thought.  I’m already having a mild panic attack about leaving my precious mountains behind.  Dane, the bartender turns out to be every bit his character.  He’s always on point and ready with a witty quip.  He never fails to act ten years less than his likely age.  He is adamant that he will never get married, will never grow up and will remain an atheist until the day he dies. 

This Peter Pan is of the species manus childus, a species with whom I have become intimately acquainted in the mountains.  The age of this man-child is accurately determined only through the application of a complex calculation.

He can be spotted in his natural habitat at the local watering hole (having fun without a beer in hand is tough) chatting up girls at least ten years younger than he is.  They laugh airily at his constant stand-up routine.  Their voices click like so many pairs of high heels on tile and he love every minute of the attention.  He is not usually ganfully employed and is supported by his enabling parents.  He has many stripes, but in the mountains he is usually identifiable by his requisite Careharts, sweatshirt (or T-shirt) from his favorite microbrewery and a college baseball hat.  He always drinks cheap beer and shoots tequila or whiskey.  He loves his Buckeyes, his Buffs, his Cornhuskers or his Bulldogs.  He loves girls but hates girlfriends that last longer than two weeks.  Should one desire to entice this reckless species be a beer swigging, pony-tailed, All American sweetheart who laughs at his jokes and avoids serious conversation.  To avoid this potentially dangerous species look no further than the kryptonite of, “I love you,” or “Let’s talk about our future together.”

“You wanna grab a drink?  I’m getting cut.”

I decide I’ve got nothing better to do.

“Sure.”

A half bottle of Hornitos cheap tequila, several beers and a basket of fries later it’s Cinderella time.  I have this bad habit of packing up and leaving as soon as a place, person or situation is no longer fun.  In college, this used to worry my friends when, come 1 AM, Kate decided to disappear into the night unannounced and without warning.  They used to look high and low for me only to find me fast asleep in my bed, pajamas on and makeup off. 

I sneak into my car and realize I have no place to stay.  Shit.  I look at the seat next to me.  Dane’s bag sits there calmly mocking me.  Shit.  “Sucker,” it says.  “You’ve got a strange man’s clothes and no bed to sleep in.  Watcha gonna go now?”

I proceed to the eternal Plan B of the technologically crippled, instant communication dependent, Generation Now.  The mass text.  I text my friends who are stuck in the mountains, I text this guy I hooked up with in college and who might, maybe still live in Denver.  I text my ex-boyfriend looking for his brother’s number.  I text my best friend in Athens, Ohio because it is totally logical that she could help in two thousands miles away.  Nothing. 

I ring my high school girlfriend’s boyfriend’s buzzer ten thousand times.  Nothing.  I am left with no choice.  I park my car on a quiet street behind the bastion of social exclusivity and elitism that is the Denver County Club (my friend who works for a Pro-Israel lobby informs me that they don’t even let Jews in).  I unroll my red sleeping bag that my Mom won at a company party when she worked for Coca Cola.  In 1983.  I pull the hood of my down hoodie over my head.  I hunker down.  I’m too tired to care about moving my shit or putting my back seats down so I curl up on the tiny half of the backseat not covered in snowshoes, hiking shoes, ski poles, running shorts, yoga pants, gloves, helmets hats and other assorted sundries of mountain life.  I’ve got a yoga mat for a pillow, a pair of skis in my ass and a pile of shoes and clothes at my feet.  The great blizzard of 2010 quickly blankets my car in eight inches of heavy wet snow.  The elitists will have no idea that I am passed out on their quiet street, in their fancy neighborhood come morning.