Rover

Things have been relatively quiet around here this summer. Because of all the security bots coming and going, there hasn't been a brawl at Think-A-Holic Lounge the entire summer. I hate to say it, but I'm a little bored and I could tell that Angus McCloud, our big-ass head bartender, was just as bored, if not more.

I heard the scuttlebutt around here that Angus recently booked the comedy team Fred & Red from the planet Mars but, like most of the regular lounge lizards, I thought it was just cosmic legend. No one in their right mind would book a comedy team where one of the comics is the astral body of a dead insult comic who used to play the Catskills and the other half is a hobo from L.A. who spent the last couple years on Earth living in a rusty 1965 Rambler Ambassador.

Then reality hit me. Stranger things have happened. Who'd have ever thought that there'd be such a thing as "Reality TV" back on Earth, where bored couch potatoes watch other bored couch potatoes cook and clean and swap moms and remodel their suburban houses and bitch and fight with each other between commercials for consumer products for couch potatoes who watch "Reality TV"?

Who'd have guessed that parents would video their own kids falling off swings sets and cracking their skulls on diving boards and then sell those videos to TV moguls who'd air that shit as some kind of entertainment? Who'd have ever thought that videos of American dads taking footballs and baseballs and baseball bats in the balls would be entertainment for a jaded world gone mad with boredom from having way too much of everything for way too long?

But that happened. It all happened. And it's still happening. So, why should I be surprised when Angus McCloud, our overachieving head bartender who is also bored out of his spooky skull, went to the back room at Bots R U and purchased a roving worm hole (see starry pic, above right) on the celestial black market? Stranger things have happened. Like watching jailbird Martha Stewart emerge from prison as the new daytime heroine of American television.

This illegal black hole (see pic) is supposed to be some kind of a two-way corridor between this dimension and another dimension that allows the teaming up of a dead insult comic with a very alive social misfit and homeless shoplifter. No one at the Lounge has the courage to try the new wormhole. Angus nicknamed the thing "Rover" because it used to be a roving wormhole that the celestial entities who run planet Earth tamed for their own whimsical amusement.

I don't know about you but I think somebody should put a muzzle on "Rover" before somebody gets bitten.

Fairy Princess

Wednesday nights are pretty slow at the Lounge and it's a good thing because around ten o'clock the front door opened and this creature walked in (see pic). Well, she didn't actually walk in. She kind of glided in.

Just as three or four regular lounge lizards began moving toward her, mentally polishing their worn-out pickup lines, Angus, the big-ass head bartender, came around the end of the bar in a flash, pushing and shoving the opportunists out of the way.

"Hi, Princess," I heard him say to the beautiful fairy.

"Hi, sweetie," she cooed. "So, this is where you spend most of your time. You naughty boy."

Then they disappeared into the manager's office, leaving the rest of us to our own devices and our own imaginations.

Sufficiently Spooked

...this is a post script to the post Tip Treasure

After seeing McCloud Castle, where our big-ass head bartender, Angus McCloud (see pic), has been living for over four hundred years as the ghost of a dead Scottish poet, I have a renewed respect for the ugly old spook. It will be an unwelcome companion to my envy regarding the fact that Angus is decidedly a lot wealthier than any of his customers at the Lounge had ever imagined.

So, while I can't help being intrigued by the McCloud royal bloodline that placed a wealthy family ghost behind the bar at Think-A-Holic Lounge, I'm rather perturbed by his basement cache of loot, knowing that a lot of it is horded tips that I personally gave him. Sufficiently perturbed. Ticked off enough that I'll never willingly over-tip the ugly old fart ever again.

This was the look Angus gave me when I tipped him the bare minimum after last call the other night. I kept waiting for him to say, "Boo!" but that never happened.

Tip Treasure

Concluding this little story, when Angus McCloud's limo driver told me to wait in the car, that merely fortified my determination to find out more about Angus and his ghostly castle at the edge of the space-time continuum.

Therefore, I did not stay in the car. I followed the driver, being careful not to let him see me. He entered the basement of the castle and, after winding through a convoluted series of dimly-lit passageways and stairwells, he came to this room. There, on the floor, lay either the McCloud family fortune or else a monstrous horde of tips stashed away from four hundred years of Angus tending bar at Think-A-Holic Lounge. My slant on all this treasure leaned toward the tip theory.

I took out my cell phone camera and snapped this picture without flash before the driver filled two small sacks with coins. Then I hustled back to the limo before he caught me in the act.

I vowed to never use this photo as leverage against Angus, our big-ass head bartender at the Lounge, but just having this ammunition made me feel a lot better somehow.

End of Story. For now.

McCloud Castle

Continuing with the previous story, Angus had arranged for his limo to take me home because I was over my limit of think-a-hol.

No sooner did the limo driver tell me that he had to stop at Angus’ home to pick up something than the limo shifted out of hyper-drive and this scene appeared ahead of us.

“What the hell is that?” I asked Angus’ driver.

“That, my good man,” replied the driver, “is McCloud Castle.”

I always knew that Angus, the big-ass head bartender at Think-A-Holic Lounge, was the ghost of a dead Scottish poet named Angus McCloud but I never knew he was any kind of royalty.

“And this is where Angus lives?” I asked, already knowing the answer.

“For over four hundred Earth years,” he responded.

“Now I know for sure that I’m over-tipping him,” I muttered to myself.

“What’s that, sir?” asked the driver as he piloted the limo in for a landing.

“I said I just love the triple moons,” I fibbed.

After we landed, I was asked to remain in the limo and I told the driver that was just fine by me. Another big fib on my part.

To be continued...

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...

A Message from Angus

"Don't think and drive."

This has been a public service announcement from Think-A-Holic Lounge and your local think-a-hol distributor.

Think-A-Holic Lounge Bartender

Angus McCloud. The 400-year-old ghost of a dead Scottish poet.

"Boo!"