[Inky]

I woke up this morning with no idea where I was.

After a few minutes, I realized I still had all my possessions and someone had covered me up with a blanket and deposited me on his couch.

This is not usually me.

Yesterday, I fought with my parents.

I'm twenty-five, almost twenty-six years old, and look at me.

Well, anyway, long story short, the money situation is only getting worse, my mother likes to parade my personal business to whoever she can find, my father told me he didn't give a damn whether anyone ate or not, and then told me they were nice Christian people and if I wanted to make extra money (for them) by working at the tattoo shop up the road then someone else would have to take me.

So I walked.

Pretty stupid, since if I worked there I'd have to walk every time, and by the time I got there my cracked pelvis was aching like a mother and my head hurt.

Anyway.

Right next door, there's this little bar called Bogarts.

I was tired, and pissed off, and I went inside to have a drink before starting the hour-long walk home.

There, I met a bartender named Elaine, a guy named Damon (Damon, of the couch I woke up on), an old Army guy named...

... I forget his name.

And two guys, Spike and Mike, respectively.

Spike asked me if I could imagine him as a younger and sleeker man.

Told me I smelled like leather.

I guess I did, since my jacket was wet.

Mike was a very serious older man, wearing a black cowboy hat (but he said he wasn't a bad guy).

Spike handed me a five and told me to go to the juke and play the bartender song.

I told him I would if I could walk over there. Apparently, after a year, straight vodka starts to feel abandoned and calls off the friendship.

I made it to the jukebox, leaned pretty heavily on Damon, and made a lot of selections, none of which I really recall.

He told me he'd make sure I got home safe (and so he did).

So the last thing I really recall was I spun out to the tune of Pink Floyd (which song, I couldn't tell you), and I was crying and telling Mike about my mess of a life, and he told me to pull myself up by my bootstraps.

Nice guy, but that's a physical impossibility.

I was in and out after that, I think Damon dragged me to the bathroom and I threw up just about everything I've eaten in the last twenty-five years (which was surprisingly little).

And then I woke up, and it was five in the morning, and I had a few texts from my family and I let them know I was okay and here I am.

And how pitiful is your life when this is a good memory, because instead of ending up stabbed and dead in a ditch, humanity came through and decided to be a nice guy for once.

Whatever doesn't kill me makes for decent fodder for my writing.

Anyway.

Off to work in an hour.

I guess since my bosses show up hungover most days, they'd be pretty hypocritical to say anything to me.

Gotta go grab some coffee now.

I wonder if the ditch would have been the better alternative.

By the way, things learned:

Sometimes, you can count on the kindness of strangers.

In bars, mostly.

A lot of older people think they've seen everything, and they know better than you. They haven't, and they don't. Mike said he'd seen eyes like mine before. I still doubt it.

You can still smoke indoors at bars in Texas.

I'm mostly hangover-proof still, and that's a very good thing.

Running a tab is for people who are drinking when they're not depressed.

[Mike_J]

I can point to a time, when a simple smile saved my life.

There is so much good in the world but it is quite soft and gentle.

The bad is loud in your face forces you to confront it

And there are nice guys in the world, but they are usually shy, so they are often hard to meet

"Forrest Gump's Mom "Stupid is as stupid Does"--always liked that one-
hugs Inky

[muse]

((((((((Inky))))))))))

Chalk it up to experience, I'd say. I've had to escape my own house a couple of times myself last year, and twice ended up sleeping in the bed of a guy I'd not had a decent conversation with in three years. Well, the second time we'd talked, haha.

I'm glad you're okay, more or less, and that for whatever reason Life decided to show you a little kindness when you needed it. Somehow, some way, things will pull through... hell, maybe you could get rides back home with one of your co-workers?