Maybe I've seen too many movies — who can say? — but last Saturday night, Earth Time, I became part of a hideous, twisted parody of the movie "Victor Victoria", that glitzy 1982 flick where Julie Andrews plays a woman pretending to be a man who's pretending to be a woman. Or something to that effect.
Anyway, it was close to last call when I came back from the male species room at Think-A-Holic Lounge and found one of those energy creatures (see pic) occupying the space above my barstool, where my own head would have been. I was glad I'd already relieved myself because just the sight of another patron in my spot pissed me right off. And I don't piss off easily.
Now, you'd figure he or she or whatever it was must have seen the Solar singles and Fins and Sawbucks on the bar, right beside my half empty shot of think-a-hol and the nearly full schooner of Buxx Brew, a bubbly chaser made from malt, hops and buck-rub bark from north central Pennsylvania, back on planet Earth. Buxx Brew has the opposite effect of the standard pilsner beer. While the regular suds eventually makes every woman on Earth look like Kim Basinger in her prime, Buxx Brew makes every female creature in the universe look like Ernest Borgnine. We drink it for our own good, not because we like it.
Anyway, I ignored the fact that this idiot energy cloud was in my spot, smack dab in front of my drinks and my money, because Angus McCloud, our big-ass head bartender, hates any kind of nasty scene right at the bar. So, I automatically assumed that this energy creature was a female creature because, even though males outnumber females elebenty-leben to one at Think-A-Holic Lounge, the most desperate lounge lizards among us are eternally optimistic about finding Ms. Right sitting on a bar stool somewhere. The average guy from Earth outgrows this ridiculous fantasy by age thirty but I've never been known for doing the right thing at the right time in my entire life. So, I figured, why start now?
"So, are you from around here?" I asked the amorphous entity.
"Whaddaya want from me?" it protested. Its voice sounded male and defensive. "I'm a nebula. I'm allowed in here."
"Sure you are. I'm, Jonco," I said politely, wanting to shake hands but a nebula has no hands.
"And I suppose this is your personal bar stool," it said, a slight feminine whine creeping into its voice.
"No, it's only mine as long as my money and my drinks are in front of it," I said, starting to get even more pissed off than I already was.
'There!" it snapped. "There's your money! There's your drinks! There's your money!" This nebula from hell began sliding and pushing and shoving the bills and change and sloshing the drinks. The male tone of voice was back but the whining was more high-pitched and annoying than before.
"Not so fast, pal," I said, trying to remain calm and collected. "I was going to buy you a drink but now you can buy me one to make up for all the think-a-hol and Buxx Brew you just spilled."
"Oh, sure," it said, suddenly sounding like a defensive middle-aged woman with an axe to grind. "The story of my life. Every guy I meet thinks I'm Ms. Money Bags."
"Wait a minute..." I stuttered, losing my grip on reality.
"Whaddaya, whaddya?" said the male side of the nebula again. "I travel fifty million miles a day. I'm selling encyclopedias to a galaxy that gets all its information online. On top a that, my boss wants me to retire and...and my wife's sneaking around with a younger nebula... and you're gonna rob me?"
"Take it easy, buddy," I said, feeling this Nebula/Nebbish nightmare rapidly becoming a cosmic reality. "Here. Let me buy you a drink after all." I looked around for Angus but he was busy washing glasses. He finally saw me and I pointed to the living anomaly sitting beside me and Angus nodded back. "What's that you're drinking?" I asked the paranoid salesman/saleswoman.
"What's to drink?" said the woman side of the thing. "I don't know you from Adam."
Then the nebula began to dissipate right before my eyes but not before I heard its male and female sides arguing with each other. I was stupefied, impressed and bewildered all at the same time. I was also speechless and unable to move.
"Never bring me here again," whined the female nebula. "Besides, you'd rather be with that what's-her-face anyway, wouldn't you?"
"Ya had da ask?" replied the sarcastic nebbish. Then the scary trans-nebula was gone. And so was I.
It was only last night around ten o'clock pm, Think-A-Holic Lounge time, that I asked Angus McCloud, our big-ass head bartender, why no one from The Netherlands on planet Earth had ever visited Think-A-Holic Lounge. I wasn't surprised by his answer.
