It was a simpler time. You were happier then. You knew how to have fun. When you’d pop downtown for after-work drinks at Murray’s, it seemed like everyone from the bartender to the college kids by the jukebox were waiting for you.
“So why’d you stop going?” your grandkids ask.
“Nothing as sweet as drinks at Murray’s can last forever,” you tell them.
It might just be the inevitable decline of adulthood, but there comes that sad day when you discover you don’t belong at your favorite bar anymore. For you, the day was obvious.
“After I took a swing at one of the darts players they strung me up on the wall and made me a human dartboard for a couple hours. When I was finally free I called my second ex-wife and just kind of screamed until the bouncer hung up the phone. Then I went to the bar and cried until I vomited all over the cash register. So they told me I couldn’t come back again.”
“And that’s when you knew you couldn’t go back to Murray’s anymore?” your grandkids ask.
“Nope,” you say. “I put on a fake mustache and tried to get in the next night but they spotted me. Then I tried dressing up like a lady. Then I sent in a hypnotist to try and hypnotize everyone into forgetting they knew me. That didn’t work. Finally, I just tried to bum rush the bouncer and he threw me in front of a moving truck.”
And that’s when you knew, at least during your next 18 months of physical therapy, that the only thing left of drinks at Murray’s was your memories.
“So when you could walk again, you knew it was time to stop going to Murray’s?” your grandchildren will ask.
“Nope,” you’ll say. “I tried going back but the bouncer threw me in front of another truck.”
And when you finished physical therapy after that truck accident, the writing was on the wall.
“On the wall of Murray’s, someone had painted a very life-like portrait of my face, with my name and age and everything, and a warning that if anyone sees me coming into the bar, I should be ejected with as much violence as possible.”
“And that’s when you knew, grandpa?” your grandkids will ask. “That’s when you knew it was time?”
“Nope. I went in and they beat the shit out of me. Put me in a seven year coma.”
And when you finally woke up from that coma, it was finally time to say goodbye to Murray’s.
“I went back but it had burned down,” you tell your grandkids.
“And that’s when you knew?” your grandkids will ask.
“Nope,” you’ll say. “I had a bottle with me so I drank it in the vacant lot. But the old bouncer happened to be walking past and he came over and beat the shit out of me.”
That final ass-kicking gave you such a horrible brain injury that you lost all sense of direction.
“I just kind of wander around the city looking for the vacant lot where Murray’s used to be,” you tell them. “But I never find it. Because there comes a time when you just have to say goodbye to your favorite bar.”
“Because you can’t find it,” your grandkids will say,
“Yup.”
Happy Remember Drinks At Murray’s Day!