Beam Bot

Now that the Super Bowl and the U.S. Presidential Election are both done deals, things have quieted down a little at Think-A-Holic Lounge. There aren't nearly as many fights in the parking lot now and only a handful of unruly patrons are being tossed out the front door each weekend by Bouncing Bobbi, the Lounge's new female bouncer. But the Lounge's big-ass head bartender, Angus McCloud, is always on the lookout for new kinds of trouble.

This afternoon Angus introduced me and a couple other think-a-holics to the latest security bot hired by the management of Think-A-Holic Lounge. It was designed to put down violent patrons before they have a chance to inflict any bodily harm on anyone or do any serious damage. Angus calls this machine Beam Bot (see pic) because it can "taser" a troublemaker from fifty feet away with an invisible particle beam that renders temporary unconsciousness. Beam Bot is supposed to "taser the perp" and then catch him or her before they fall to the ground and hurt themselves. Unh, hunh.

When we asked Angus if this Beam Bot thing was legal, he reminded us that Think-A-Holic Lounge occupies no space in the physical universe and, therefore, it has no actual position in the space-time continuum. I guess he was trying to tell us that this is the new frontier and therefore, lawlessness was permitted. Yeah, right. Especially when all you have to do is grease someone's palm. When I asked him if he was expecting trouble or looking for trouble, the big ol' Scottish ghost just shrugged his shoulders.

"I'm just doing my job," he told us with his thumb poised over the "ON" button on Beam Bot's remote.

"What's that big rocket on his back for?" one of the regulars asked.

"Damned if I know," replied Angus. Then he turned on the bot.

I should have expected what happened next. Beam Bot came to life with an ominous, whirring sound, scanned everyone in the parking lot with his particle beam gun, and then returned to me and held his beam snout steadily on me. Sweat trickled down my face and I felt like running. But I knew better.

"Now, about that bar tab of yours, Jonco," said Angus, still aiming the remote at his brand-new bot toy. Everybody howled with laughter as if Angus had delivered the most comical line they'd ever heard. I wasn't laughing.

"Funny," I snorted and went inside to order up a double shot of think-a-hol and a single bubbly chaser from the relief bartender.

I chuckled to myself after I tossed down the think-a-hol because I knew that it was only a joke. Still, looking out for trouble is one thing but looking for trouble is quite another and almost always a self-fulfilling prophecy. But, hell, if I had a nifty toy like Beam Bot to play with, I'd probably be just as eager as Angus was for the next barroom brawl.