I watched a brief summary of the primary election results when I got back from The Front Page last night. The place is getting as comfortable as an old shoe, like the battered deck shoes that I wear now that came fromDad. The leather is now molded to my feet, and socks or no socks, caress my arches and coddle my toes. I gave all my fancy shoes to the Good Will. Life is grand.

Jon-Without and K2 were at the bar when I strolled in. The election news was flickering on one of the flat-screens suspended over the bar, but that wasn’t the topic of conversation. “Did you hear they are shutting down the Metro tomorrow?” asked K2, taking a pull on the dark liquid in the pint glass in front of him.

Jon-without adjusted his bow tie. “That is going to screw me up big time tomorrow. I have to be downtown for a demonstration. I can’t get out of it. What am I supposed to do? Take a bus?”

“Seems a shame that no one knew that all systems get old and need regular maintenance,” I said. “What a surprise.”

Jon-without said something about government always knowing best, but I didn’t catch it, since Laura the bartender was bending over to get something in that remarkably short red kilt she wears to improve her tips.

K2 frowned. “I have a brutal commute. This is going to be a hardship. It is almost two blocks from my apartment to the building here.”

“Certainly having a favorite bar in the same building in which you work is a positive commitment to a sustainable lifestyle,” I said. Shea the bartender slid a diet tonic and vodka with a slice of lime in front of me and I couldn’t help but smile. “I am taking this as a sign that it is getting on time to get out of Arlington before more infrastructure collapses.”

“Do you think it is really maintenance?” asked Jon-without, furrowing his brow. “Or could the Homeland Security Bubbas have got wind of some kind of terror plot like Madrid?”

“Nah, nothing like that. I bet it is just the realization that the infrastructure is rickety and someone is going to get hurt unless they do something drastic.”

“Why didn’t they do this on the weekend? Why do they have to screw up the working week?”

“Who says we really work here. I bet it is the Cherry Blossom Festival,” said K2. “And St. Patrick’s Day on Thursday. So a Wednesday surprise has the least impact. It will just be a snow day without the snow.”

“I am staying away from all large pubic gatherings,” I said. “And that includes public transit. But thanks for the reminder about St. Paddy’s Day. I don’t drive on the days when the amateurs are on the roads.”
I took a refreshing sip of my drink through the two little plastic straws I use to keep track of where I am in the evening. “Any thoughts on what is happening with the primaries?”

K2 looked pensive. “Is there any doubt?”

“You have no doubts? What do you think is going to happen?”

He put down his Guinness. “I think the coast is going to get a little clearer about who we are going to vote against. That’s what I think.”

I waggled my finger at Shea, after counting the number of straws on the napkin in front of me. “Guinness,” I said. “It’s good for you.”

Like I said, I looked at the flat-screen television when I got home after debating whether to actually turn it on. I stirred the cabbage that was slow cooking in corned beef juices on the stove. In the end, I could not help myself, and got the remote control and turned on the 62-inch monster.

It blinked to life, and I looked at what had happened. “Damn,” I thought. “K2 was right!”

Copyright 2016 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com