Boring Vices

As I was just beginning to doze I heard my cell phone ringing. I saw that it was Kathleen, answered it, and was greeted with “Are you dressed?”
If I hadn’t known any better I might have taken this to be some sort of awkward attempt at initiating a naughty phone call.
After all, in such a situation I could see Kathleen in her typically blunt and brusque manner blurting out “Are you dressed?” rather than the more traditional “What are you wearing?”
However, I did know better and realized that she was probably asking because she and Brian were in the neighborhood and wanted to see if I was interested in joining them for lunch.
This turned out to be the case, and though I’d already eaten and was not, in fact, dressed (I had been napping after all), I opted to join them.
I threw on some clothes and put my contacts in and went outside to find them waiting for me.
We headed to Ruby Tuesday where we ended up waiting in the entrance for quite some time, though for less than the projected 35 minutes.
Apparently they weren’t seating people because their computers were down, which I assume had more to do with not being able to ring up orders or process credit card payments than actually seating people, but in any case there was quite a line of people waiting, and there were even more people who opted not to wait.
Among the people we saw who were turned away was someone who was a dead ringer for Stephen Root as Milton in Office Space and this old bald guy with glasses whom I was certain was about to start dancing and load us all onto a bus to the nearest Six Flags.
Of course, he wasn’t wearing the suit or the bow tie, so maybe it’s day off.
In any case, it did get that irritating music from the commercials stuck in my head (Kathleen’s as well).
The wait, as mentioned, wasn’t as long as projected, though we did end up getting led around the restaurant a few times in search of the table that was supposedly available for our use.
Given that I’d just eaten not to much earlier, I opted for an appetizer (Southwestern Spring Rolls) which I couldn’t actually finish anyway.
I also had two root beers, which I mentioned to them (and am mentioning here) has become my latest vice.
The amount of root beer I go through isn’t anywhere at the levels of my consumption of Mountain Dew or actual beer back in the days when I didn’t avoid caffeine and alcohol (it’s an incredible understatement to say that I “didn’t avoid caffeine and alcohol” then, but you get the idea), but I have been drinking it pretty regularly lately.
Ordinarily I only drink water, with the occasional Sprite when I go to a restaurant or a movie, but I’ve actually been buying root beer, specifically Dominion Root Beer, to have at home.
I said to Brian and Kathleen that it’s my new vice because I “can’t have any of the fun vices.”
As far as vices go it’s pretty lame.
Brian mentioned that I’ve still got porn, but Kathleen pointed out that you can’t really order that in restaurants.
In any case, I’ve found having the glass bottles of root beer a bit odd, as they remind me a little too much (uncomfortably so) of having a different kind of bottles around, so I think that when I finish my one remaining bottle I’ll call it quits on this new vice.
(When I hear the bottles clink together the sound transports me mentally back to Minnesota in early 2000 and I find myself hauling my green plastic recycling bin filled to overflowing with empty Killian’s Irish Red bottles out to the curb. At least I was an environmentally responsible drunk.)
So apparently I can’t even have lame vices.
*Sigh*
Yes, there is still porn, but as I’ve mentioned before, in my case porn isn’t so much a vice as a necessity.
As I was writing this it occurred to me that being off on Sunday puts me in some amount of sync with my friend “Zalfiro,” so I decided to give him a call. I don’t think I’ve actually talked to him since the last time I was off on a Sunday (probably even longer than that), so it ended up being a pretty lengthy conversation.
And now it’s time to start thinking about dinner, as the fullness from my two lunches has worn off…