I am currently enjoying a moderately good BLT on wheat with a pickle on the side in a dive bar ten miles east of Mobile, Alabama. It is becoming difficult, however, to enjoy my extra crisp bacon, over-ripe tomato, and limp lettuce over the increasingly loud conversation between the bartender and a man in is mid-thirties sitting two stools to my right.
I knew as soon as I had ordered that I was forty years too old to be remotely interesting to my counter companion and that initial impression has proven itself to be correct. I have heard him declare Jim Morrison, Eric Clapton, and the entire genre of the Blues painful and overrated. I have heard him declare his undying and misguided love for no less than three and no more than seven different women. I have heard him claim that he thinks he has some condition where he thinks that he's already dead. And this has all been over the span of ten minutes. I'm exhausted and I haven't even said anything. This man's self-indulgent interest in his own opinions and melodramatic use of the superlative remind me of someone much who is much younger than thirty two at best or thirty seven at worst. He actually reminds me a bit of my youngest son when he was going through his rebellious, "nobody understands me" phase, but Jack was seventeen and has luckily evolved into an adult capable of nuance and restraint.
The bartender comes over and asks if I want dessert. I would love my customary piece of apple pie, but I don't think that I have it in me to listen to this insufferable young man any longer. I shake my head no, ask for the check, and give him a commiserating smile as he walks slowly back to the thirty-something on my right who has yet to take a breath during his most recent soliloquy.
After I sign my receipt I walk briskly back to the F150. I think I'll get an ice cream from the gas station I passed a mile back.
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