Good Times Are Back at the South End Diner
Down at the Diner normality is slowly returning. Well, the New Normality, I guess. After being shut down briefly for non-compliance with plague masking, the café began to adhere to the governor’s edict that masks must be worn by customer and staff alike. As soon as some of the quarantines lifted, the Diner was first in line to rip those N-95’s off their ears and breathe free once again. Eager to recoup the winter’s lost revenues, they built a makeshift beer garden out by the parking lot next to the building, fenced it off and offered tourists and residents adult beverages near the gas pumps. Even brought in music, small groups and a night of open mic.
Course, they had forgotten about checking with the Liquor Board for permits for a beer garden, or if they had checked, went ahead without them. So for a time the music by the pumps and the open mics went on hiatus until the snafu was corrected. Damn government regulations! Last week I drove up to hear what the open mic folks might have to offer, maybe catch a beer and sit in the sun. And while it’s not Margaritaville or a sunset rich view of the Puget Sound, it’s pleasant enough. Unless you happen to be sitting next to the air return for the café’s HVAC system, 95 degree breezes fluttering your hat, although, to be fair, there are a few more seats further from the desert breeze.
I lasted one cold beer, at least until the guy with the saxophone stepped up to the microphone and butchered Duke Ellington. I was in 5th grade band classes with kids who could play like this, but I’m not in 5th grade anymore and I honestly believe before you perform in public, you ought to learn to halfway play your instrument. Just saying….
Saturday night the mizzus and me went to hear a very good fiddler play old time music, solo and then with friends. It was indoors after the only rain of the summer soaked the beer garden, all very convivial for a small super spreader event, the beer was good, the place was packed. After a dozen songs or so a 30 something woman parked next to me who started yelling in my right ear GET CLOSER TO THE MICROPHONE!! or YOU NEED TO TURN UP THE AMP!! or SING LOUDER!! until finally I got up and moved away from her. She immediately charged over to ask AM I ANNOYING YOU??
Now, a bigger man, a more mature man, a man mellowed by the South End laid back lifestyle might have said, no, ma’am, I just had my right ass cheek going dead so I thought I would move to a different seating position, nothing at all to do with the new tinnitus in my right ear … but, of course, that would be a different man than myself. When she took umbrage to my telling her hell yes you’re annoying me, you’re screaming in my ear louder than the damn band, she seemed suddenly enraged for some reason. To which she spluttered and told me YOU NEED A NEW HAT!!
I didn’t have the heart to tell her it was a new hat, figuring it probably wouldn’t lower the volume. I started to tell her she needed a …. stopped myself, then said, aw, let’s quit here, why don’t we? When the song ended, I grabbed The mizzus from across the room and left. Good times at the diner, obviously, are back.
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Tags: Fear and Loathing at the South End Diner, Hat Hatred, Music at the South End Diner, South End Diner
“YOU NEED A NEW HAT!!”
Ouch.
That’s gotta sting.
Bur it’s awfully hard to argue with a razor sharp hat insult.
I must admit, that was always my favorite part in movies about the Old West. When the cheap liquor was flowin’ in the saloon, and hat insults ricocheted across the room.
“Hey Kid, you look in a mirror lately, that hat’s tattered!”
“Yours be dusty you old snake!”
“Ya get that heiferskin off a hangin’ man pardner?”
Over the years I’ve gotten accustomed to hat denigration. Hat shaming, we call it down here, Pilgrim. I don’t usually take umbrage. When folks ask, tangentially reaching for some motive why an hombre would wear a hat so battered and dirty, How Long Ya Had That Hat?, I just scratch my beard and mumble, too long to remember. I like to age the haberdashery on the scarecrow, let it ferment awhile before making it my own. But dammit to hell, some MAGA mistress segueing from criticism of her own rude behavior to fashion criticism, well, I admit, I lost my casual non-chalance. Wouldn’t be the first time and won’t be the last. A man has to defend his sombrero, that’s all I know for sure.