April 30, 2004

Surreal Pub Experience

Jogging home from work I had one of my attacks. If you don't already know, these are of an incontinent nature. It took all my mental energy just to make it to the pub at the end of the road.

7pm on a Friday evening. The pubs I passed 10 minutes ago in the West End were packed with pint-downing patrons with even more clusters of weekend revelers spilling onto the pavement outside. But as I approached the Prince Edward at the bottom of College Way, I had diffuculty assessing whether this place was even open. The blue door gave way as I pushed on it gingerly. Stepping inside, I inhaled air so stale and thick with smoke I thought for a milisecond the building was on fire. My eyes adjusted to the dim lighting and a quick scan of the room registered five occupants; a pretty young girl behind the bar chatting to her two, pretty young friends seated on the opposite side, someone at a table in my right peripheral view and another someone with outstretched legs to my left, just behind the door, each one of them with a fag in hand. How could so few people make so much smoke?

As I walked up to the bar to ask permission to use the loo, I heard the left someone grunt, "fit". It wasn't so much a flirtation as it was a Tourettes syndrome-like outburst.

Coming out of the stall and feeling oh so much better, I found an elderly-looking woman teetering on a chair just in front of the sink, a lit cigarette in one hand and an eye liner pencil in the other. Making eye contact with me in the mirror, she chortled in a gravely voice, "Just trying to get my make-up on". I thought of offering to balance the teetering chair for her, but better judgement told me to make like a shepherd. And I did.