Maureen and I have a saying that we use if maybe we happen to stay out too late and have a little bit too much fun. We call it practicing for our next trip to Ireland. Last night we got in a lot of practice.
It all started out very innocently. A White Sox game with my sister Laura’s boyfriend Norm. Then a trip over to a small local pub, not too far from the ballpark with an outside seating area, called Turtles.
Norm left us some time around 11, and had we been smart, we should have headed home ourselves, but we were having a nice time, and I felt like crooning a tune, so we headed off into the night looking for another place to sit for a while. Our first stop was a bit of a bust, but I did get to sing “Drift Away” before we headed out for another stop. We recalled another bar that was a bit of a dump, but had karaoke on Fridays and Saturday. It also happened to have a 4 a.m. licence, and staying there until closing turned out to be the least of our problems.
The nice young lady running the show let me sing “Walking in Memphis” and a long-haired blond “dude” served us a couple of bottles of Miller Lite. We knew going in that we were going to a dive bar, and we never shied away from the occasional hole in the wall. Most of them have more character than the more up to date modern mall bars, and the club scene is certainly not my style. What we didn’t expect on this late night was a little bit of extra character.
I am no entymologist, but it does not take a degree to know that the large bug that crossed the floor not too far from our bar stools was a cockroach. And a rather large one at that. Maureen did not see it, but a gentleman a couple stools down from me did. I asked him if we should just ignore what we saw, and he agreed that maybe it was best if we did. That is until our little friend made a return trip.
As if having a giant bug belly up to the bar with me was not disturbing enough, what happened next will be forever branded in my memory. From down at the other end of the bar, a shriek cut through the music as a young lady spotted the unwelcome guest. Before I knew what was happening, the girl pulled a blue flip-flop off her foot and hurled it about fifteen feet towards the bug. And she nailed that sucker, squashing him dead. Then very calmly she walked over and retrieved her bug seeking foot missile.
The dead bug remained on the floor where it had perished, until the nice karaoke girl finally covered it with a napkin. The lights come on, confirming Maureen and I had stayed way too late, and we all headed off into the early morning, all except for the murdered cockroach. He stayed behind.
And judging by the look of the place with the lights on, he is probably still there right now.
