My horror was brought to life a few short nights ago while shoving appetizers in my face at a fancy chain restaurant. It was at this very place I discovered, to my devastation, the interaction of two gentlemen that defied the laws of the utmost manliest logic. The characters, one bartender and one patron, delivered such a lecherous dialogue that I was almost prompted to ask them to surrender their man cards immediately.
The gorging commenced in style, casually nibbling on all the delicious hopefully-not-microwaved offerings of boneless wings, spinach dip, and washing it all down with a couple Blue Moons. The patron, an older mustached fellow, apparently had been there for a couple hours, enjoying himself while waiting for dinner to be served. He was quite chatty with a friend who sat next to him briefly, but eventually the friend parted. This left our loquacious protagonist with our trusty bartender, a seemingly late twenty-something guy with considerable ink on both his forearms and what I could make out around his exposed collarbone.
So they're chatting, doing their thing. The bar area is considerably empty, so the two have time to regale back and forth any random acts of small talk. The problem is, neither of them were any good at the small talk. I'm not referring to the old how's-the-weather shtick, however. This is something much deeper.
Around the bar area sits about four large televisions. Three of them were showing sporting events - specifically basketball games. On the screen directly across from the patron's line of vision was a NBA game between the Brooklyn Nets and the Philadelphia 76ers. The patron and the bartender discuss the game:
Patron: Now I know PHI stands for Philadelphia, but what's BKN? Is that...Brooklyn?
Bartender: Uhhh...I'm not really sure. I think the Nets are coming from New...Jersey. They have to build the stadium first.
Patron: Oh, New Jersey is moving to Brooklyn? Is that right? Where's Brooklyn again?
Bartender: Uhhh...I think near Manhattan or something? Some rich Russian guy and...uh...damn, what's that rappers name again? Well they bought the team and moved it.
I didn't have the heart to tell them the Nets had already moved to Brooklyn - fourteen months ago, in fact, and therefore were already playing in their new "stadium." Or maybe I could have asked them what other city might be abbreviated BKN? Baconland with a K? It was the complete lacking of - not even sports knowledge - but geography, pop culture (the rapper, Jay-Z, ever hear of him?), and maybe a slight understanding of city abbreviations.
Eventually the topic switched to the other games on the screens before the patron, which were college basketball games. They began to discuss the NCAA tournament, which fields 68 teams. Both of them were absolutely convinced the tournament fielded 128 teams, and that was representative of most of the Division I programs. I thought that was cute, as 128 would only be a little under 40% of all the total Division I basketball programs. Not that everyone should know how many schools are in what division, but 128 schools barely scratches the surface in the NCAA's so-called "main" division.
Thankfully, these two small-talk aficionados stopped discussing things they were quite unsure about. I felt a manly stabbing at my soul, unable to appreciate my probably microwaved meal.
The gorging commenced in style, casually nibbling on all the delicious hopefully-not-microwaved offerings of boneless wings, spinach dip, and washing it all down with a couple Blue Moons. The patron, an older mustached fellow, apparently had been there for a couple hours, enjoying himself while waiting for dinner to be served. He was quite chatty with a friend who sat next to him briefly, but eventually the friend parted. This left our loquacious protagonist with our trusty bartender, a seemingly late twenty-something guy with considerable ink on both his forearms and what I could make out around his exposed collarbone.
So they're chatting, doing their thing. The bar area is considerably empty, so the two have time to regale back and forth any random acts of small talk. The problem is, neither of them were any good at the small talk. I'm not referring to the old how's-the-weather shtick, however. This is something much deeper.
Around the bar area sits about four large televisions. Three of them were showing sporting events - specifically basketball games. On the screen directly across from the patron's line of vision was a NBA game between the Brooklyn Nets and the Philadelphia 76ers. The patron and the bartender discuss the game:
Patron: Now I know PHI stands for Philadelphia, but what's BKN? Is that...Brooklyn?
Bartender: Uhhh...I'm not really sure. I think the Nets are coming from New...Jersey. They have to build the stadium first.
Patron: Oh, New Jersey is moving to Brooklyn? Is that right? Where's Brooklyn again?
Bartender: Uhhh...I think near Manhattan or something? Some rich Russian guy and...uh...damn, what's that rappers name again? Well they bought the team and moved it.
I didn't have the heart to tell them the Nets had already moved to Brooklyn - fourteen months ago, in fact, and therefore were already playing in their new "stadium." Or maybe I could have asked them what other city might be abbreviated BKN? Baconland with a K? It was the complete lacking of - not even sports knowledge - but geography, pop culture (the rapper, Jay-Z, ever hear of him?), and maybe a slight understanding of city abbreviations.
Eventually the topic switched to the other games on the screens before the patron, which were college basketball games. They began to discuss the NCAA tournament, which fields 68 teams. Both of them were absolutely convinced the tournament fielded 128 teams, and that was representative of most of the Division I programs. I thought that was cute, as 128 would only be a little under 40% of all the total Division I basketball programs. Not that everyone should know how many schools are in what division, but 128 schools barely scratches the surface in the NCAA's so-called "main" division.
Thankfully, these two small-talk aficionados stopped discussing things they were quite unsure about. I felt a manly stabbing at my soul, unable to appreciate my probably microwaved meal.