~Sunday~ The service at breakfast this morning was most annoying.
Shall I enumerate how so?
I think I will.
- It was way too long after I joined Joe before someone came to ask what I wanted.
- One of the waiters has the incredibly annoying habit of looking only at what’s on the table and never making eye contact with the customer, which makes it very difficult to indicate without screaming to him that you need a coffee refill, for instance.
- Joe only got a part of his order and it took way too long for someone to come back just to tell them, and then once we did tell one of the waiters, it took forever to bring it out. I mean it was granola cereal poured into a bowl with a little carafe of skim milk.
- We had to ask (and I’ve already intimated how easy that wasn’t) for coffee refills way too many times.
Okay, I’m done.
I found two of this week’s PostSecret entries compelling, each for the reason that I’ll classify as self-explanatory:
I said in a Facebook status about that second one, “There have been very few times in my life when I have wondered what kind of parent I might have been. One of today’s PostSecret entries told me.”
There was some kind of all-afternoon, pre-happy hour, drag queen-involved, something-or-other going on at the poolside restaurant and bar from noon or 12:30 right up until the regular happy hour from 5:30-7:00.
In a place like this, after people have been drinking for that long, their voices are about three octaves higher, the ones that shouldn’t be naked are, and “Girl!,” “Honey!” and “Sister” flow freer than the drinks.
Joe and I avoided the place.
We did make happy hour, of course! We had dinner during that time, too, and I had their most delicious Black Angus Burger—medium well—with a side order of their seasoned waffle fries. Yummy.
A guy named Jim sat next to us for the last half hour of happy hour (which is really an hour-and-a-half), who had also sat next to us at breakfast this morning. Too much talk about his work. Both at breakfast, and again at happy hour.
We headed down to 801 Bourbon Street Bar and its “back bar,” Saloon 1. There were some guys there that Joe had become friends with by now. They had names such as Robert and Bruce (a couple); Jeremy and his partner whose name I can’t remember, but who was devilishly handsome; John and Steven (another couple), and yet another couple, a black guy and a white guy whose names I don’t think I was ever made privy to.
Nobody walked around naked in the bar tonight, and no one was “serviced” in the middle of the bar. One guy did feel compelled to show his pee-pee, but only once though.
Before leaving Joe there, I stood out front on the sidewalk, where you’re allowed to drink your drink (as well as walk up and down the street with it as long as it’s in a plastic container), and I people-watched.
I like to watch and listen to straight people walk by and once they process that it’s a gay bar, watch their facial expressions and try to overhear the comments they whisper to each other.
Tonight there were two fake beds, which were advertising some upcoming event, standing up against the exterior wall to the club, and at one point a lady walking by one of them with her husband ran her hand in front of it like Carol Merrill and said to me as if I were Monty Hall himself, “What’s with the beds?”
“It’s a gay club,” I said and added, “You know how we love beds.”
That seemed to be a viable explanation to her—with seemingly no recognition of the sarcasm dripping from my voice—and she moved along her straight and narrow path up Duval Street. Move along. Nothing to see here.
On the way back to the Island House, I stopped at a convenience store, where I bought one of those pre-packed sandwiches, ham and cheese, and one of those Good Humor “Giant” ice cream sandwiches.
It was all good.