Julie J.
Yelp
Once upon a time, after several hours of drinking with librarians further north, I was summoned here to bear to witness to the truly holy and epic vodka consumption (approximately 3/4 of a bottle the size of a large baby) of several friends and people I'd never met before.
The space was impressive--large, impossibly large, flanked by mirrors on all sides, culminating in a dance floor that my fourteen year old self at a school dance would've fled from in horror. Tables filled the space that was not dance floor, and bottles of icy vodka graced almost every table.
The waitress spoke one language: drinks. "Drinks? Drinks. More drinks?" Glasses were provided with beer bottles and the vodka glittered in the disco fevered lights.
In the dim light, I watched twenty or so couples, all on the further edge of middle age, dance to frenetic dance music performed by a two man band. Sometimes I could almost pick out the tune, as though they were playing recognizable hits through a polka filter, but other times I'm convinced they were playing the score of the greatest Polish rock opera the world has never known. Whatever they were playing, it was music made for dancing, and that's what most of the people in attendance did. (I don't dance, for good reason--but that's another story for another time.)
One older man, with a mustache like John Waters but none of the charm, made a never ceasing rotation of visits to every table in search of new flesh that he could clumsily grope in the guise of dancing. When he approached our table I made a play at staring into the depths of my beer glass, searching for the meaning of life or perhaps the vision of the face of my future husband in the cloudy brew. All the ladies he danced with, whether geriatric or thirty something, were quite adept at rebuffing his advances, which eased my mind greatly. In fact, the blase attitude that one older woman had while removing his hands from her nether regions was particularly amusing to me.
Shortly after I arrived, the group dispersed. I'm still not entirely sure it actually happened. Those librarians might have slipped me something. But as far as real experiences or fever dreams go, this one was a keeper.
