I decided to get some gravel under my feet…

And by gravel I mean a bar.

So I go to a failsafe spot that everyone should keep in mind if they ever need a classy joint to booze up in.

The local bowling alley.

So the sweet middle-aged woman who’s showin a little too much tit for her own good leans over and asks, “what’ll it be?”

Jack on the rocks and keep it comin.

The bar is empty save for a few kids with fake IDs, a local couple talking about junior’s peewee football team a tad too loud and a group of bowlers tellin’ each other about the current political climate.

The room is cold and “Your Cheatin’ Heart” by Sir Hank Williams is being sung by an old guy at karaoke.

This isn’t a place to pick up on broads. This isn’t a place to meet up with your squeeze. This isn’t a place to write your next big screenplay. Kids that stumble in here saying things like, “fuck yeah!” and ordering Yeager bombs are treated like a quivering cancer forming at the core of a brain.

This is an oasis for those brave men and women who have devoted their life to the pastel airbrush of suburbia.

If you keep your ear to the ground, you can hear dreams that started as “oscar award winning” and “star of the Dallas Cowboys” change into “little Ronnie got a full-boat to Stanford” or “a couple more years untill I retire to Newport Beach.”

I dig it…

Until one of these failed, middle-aged jocks gives me the squint-eye as I watch his fat wife sing “margarita ville.”

Time to show Greg Brady the top sides of my knuckles.