Outshining the Stars

As you may or may not know, Think-A-Holic Lounge occupies no physical position in the space-time continuum. So, star maps and road maps are worthless if you're trying to find your way to this notorious watering hole for outcasts in the publishing underworld.

Flesh-and-blood humans can't physically make the trip here unless they go by wormhole. And then the wormhole invariably whisks them right back to where they came from the minute they land here. So, the Lounge doesn't rely on regular people for its clientele.

Regular Think-A-Holic Lounge Lizards are mainly disembodied spirits, alter egos, astral projections and the dreaming selves of flesh-and-blood humans. Plus biped, quadraped and legless creatures of every size, shape and color from intergalactic space. Even creatures who are nothing more than living energy masses scramble to Think-A-Holic Lounge when their workday is over or when they have time on their hands. And, like any regular business on any regular planet with regular flesh-and-blood customers and patrons, Think-A-Holic Lounge hits a slump in business every now and then.

The biggest slump in business for Think-A-Holic Lounge always occurs on Black Friday, the infamous "day of mob behavior" on planet Earth. That's our biggest slump here because more than half of our patrons are disenfranchised and lost souls from that backward and greedy planet. Shopping is their favorite past time, then eating, chin wagging, imbibing intoxicating beverages and fighting, mostly in that order. But, from Black Friday through the last January White Sale on Earth, half of our patrons' flesh-and-blood selves are too busy shopping to warm our bar stools.

So, the other day Angus McCloud, our resourceful big-ass head bartender, put up a new neon sign, right on top of the Lounge roof. After four hundred years as a ghost bartender it finally dawned on him that, if you offer free stuff (even if it's only peanuts, popcorn and pretzels), no Earthling can resist doing whatever it takes to be first in line.

Last week I bet Angus a Solar Sawbuck that he couldn't bring his "patron stats" back up to par before New Years Eve hits Earth. He laughed and raised me another Sawbuck and that made me add a Solar Fin on top of that to the wager. When we finally shook on that deal, I knew by the look in his beady little eyes that I was already being taken for about 13 Solar Quid. Hopefully, some royalties will get beamed into my bank account from that Neptune bookseller before I run out of think-a-hol money. To the best of my recollection, that's never happened before.

Thinkers Can't Be Choosers

This past Saturday night I found myself over my limit of think-a-hol once again. It was disconcerting, to say the least, when Angus shut me off before I was ready to go home.

The big old Scot, who is the ghost of a dead Scottish poet and the head bartender at the Lounge, saw that I was beside myself with embarrassment. He tried to make it up to me by offering the services of his limo and driver to take me home. I was so over my limit that I accepted. This also proved his point that I needed to be shut off.

Before the limo got very far, I fell asleep. When I woke up, this is what I saw from the back seat. I heard the driver say in a glib, matter-of-fact tone that he had to pick up something for Angus at his home before he dropped me off at mine. Then I fell asleep again.

To be continued...

She Rode a Comet

I ran into this interesting woman at the Lounge the other night just before last call. I tried to snap her picture with my cell phone camera but every time I pointed it at her she gave me a backhand and I fell off the stool. After three or four attempts, I finally gave up, even though our antics were wildly entertaining to the regulars who were still lurking there.

She wouldn't even tell me her name and all I can really remember about her is that she had auburn hair, a pale complexion accentuated by the right amount of freckles in just the right places, and that she spoke with what they used to call "an Anglicized accent", which made her sound like part of the Knickerbocker upper crust from 1930's Manhattan. I fell in love immediately.

When she was ready to leave, I asked her if I could walk her out and she said that would be fine.

"Where's your car?" I asked her once we were out in the parking lot. It was one of those starry nights that I like so much.

"Huh?" she replied, looking well over her limit of think-a-hol.

"What are you driving?" I asked, rephrasing the question.

"A comet," she said.

"Wow," I cooed, "I haven't seen a Mercury Comet in years. Is it fully restored?"

"Huh?" she said.

"Where's your Comet?" I asked, cutting to the chase.

"Up there," she said, pointing to a part of the sky just above the roof. And, much to my disbelief, there it was. A big, bright geostationary comet waiting for her above the Lounge.

Well...I'm not sure how she got aboard that comet and I probably should have waited around and found out for myself. But, like a scared rabbit, I went back inside and ordered another shot of think-a-hol, instead. And then another.

I hope I get to see her again one day soon. But opportunities like that usually come around only once. And I'm still kicking myself for not hitching a ride on her comet.