Rhythm of Life Volume 3

the Rhythm of Life is published weekly by David A. Johnson. -=-=-=-= E-Mail Dave: rhythmofdave at aol dot com -=-=-=-=-=-=- AIM Screen Name: d0johns1

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

TRIALS, TRIBULATIONS, AND TRAVERSE CITY

January 18, 2004

When you run a weekly column on dating stories, and you’ve had absolutely no luck whatsoever in both dating, or writing lately, how do you solve both problems with one stone? Call up two of your friends, go to priceline.com and book the nicest hotel in Traverse City for fifty dollars. That’s right, it was a night on the town for the three of us, and the last hoorah before school started up again for myself and Kara.

We decided early on the theme of the evening would be a lot like Eccentric Night. We would make up wild stories and be completely different people. It ended up that I would have the most wild and exotic. Not only was I British, but apparently I was also gay. While in all actuality I am neither, I still really liked the idea of being someone completely different in the interest of writing…plus, those acting skills that lay dormant since High School were just itching to get out in front of the world again. The goal of the evening was to collect as many people’s dating stories as possible so that I would have more material than I needed to keep myself more than occupied for as long as possible. What ended up happening however was quite possibly the closest thing to an episode of Sex and the City that I had ever encountered.

It all started when we left the hotel after check in to hit up Mackinac Island Brewing Company for dinner and beer. We chose it because we thought it was this wonderful restaurant we had been to about four weeks before on an excursion with some fellow teachers. Where we ended up was somewhere on the other side of town. Kara was close to calling her mother and asking where the actual restaurant was, but Kaylee and I both decided this sounded like a fun place to go.

Over beers and appetizers, we noticed our waiter was flirting with Kara. Kara was disgusted as she felt he was padding his tip, but Kaylee decided to begin our evening of learning other peoples stories, by asking the age old question: “Are you seeing someone.”

Apparently, our twenty four year old waiter liked them artsy, sophisticated, entrepreneurial, and over forty. Suddenly Kara realized he wasn’t flirting with her, he was flirting with the idea of dating within his own age bracket. Things weren’t a total waste however, as he did put us in touch with a good taxi service, and as we finished our dinners we headed out into the rain to find an ATM.

We grabbed some cash and just as we walked out of the booth, our Taxi pulled up. Our driver drove us to our second destination of the evening, a bar for Kara known as Streeters. Streeters was large, in charge, and fairly vacant, but that didn’t distract Kara from flirting with the bartender for an inevitable free drink down the road. Kaylee and I were several sips into our latest drinks when Kara announced we were playing pool. There’s one thing I’ve learned about going to bars with Kara. When Kara announces we’re playing pool, we’re playing pool, and when Kara announces we’re playing darts, we’re playing darts.

Two games of pool and the longest running game of darts in recent history, Kara was antsy for the grind of a dance floor, while Kaylee and I, both of whom don’t normally dance under any circumstances, no matter how much alcohol you pump into our systems, both just wanted a chair. We noticed a large group of people hovering around the entrance doors to the dance club section of the building, but still, the doors remained closed.

Our luck was changing however, as the lights went up on the stage, the three words that always put me in a good mood emphasized by the 300 watt stage bulbs, hovering there like a godsend. Dueling Piano Bar. We had forty five minutes left before we were scheduled to begin Dave’s half of our performance. I had made the best of it to this point, the British accent had been on since check in at Park Place, and the charm had been laid on to as many lady bartenders as possible at Streeters. I had learned several stories at this point, including Beth who had had seven boyfriends in the past three months. Apparently she had a lot of sunglasses, all of which fit her perfectly (see last week)

Kaylee, before we headed out, had changed into her formal attire, something that would have made her jump out at a hooch bar in Kalamazoo. In Traverse City, her pink boob top simply screamed “Tourist”. Every time she bent over, she gave the gift of cleavage to whoever happened to be nearby. This gave the Dueling Pianists plenty of material to keep the two of us entertained, however, Kara was bored and listless. She turned around and found the man of her dreams, or at least, the man of her evening. They talked for about ten minutes before she noticed the doors to the dance club had opened up. She scooped up her man and tried to get us to join her, but Kaylee and I were having fun so we left her to her own devices.

The interesting thing about dueling piano bars, was that when it felt like only five minutes had passed, it was actually closer to half an hour. I glanced down at my watch and nodded at Kaylee who nodded her head and we went to collect our missing third party.

The problem that we encountered in collecting Kara was that Kara was hard to get a hold of, and getting into the night club was hard as well. The bouncer was trying to get both of us to pay our five dollars to get in, even though I was trying desperately to just get in, get my friend, and get out. Eventually he let me and Kara began to say goodbye to her dream date.

Five minutes passed, then ten. I had called the cab and they had said fifteen so I was getting antsy, so I sent Kaylee in. Kaylee however hovered at the bar talking to someone else, and I was beginning to get worried. I had called the cab, I had tried to get us out of the bar, but nothing was happening.

Thank goodness for NexTel. I hit the alert button on both phones and we were on our way. When Mr. Wonderful learned where we were going however, anything he had going for him began to leave with us. The thought of a gay bar wasn’t exactly the evening I had had in mind either, but I have a few gay friends from way back, so I knew exactly how to handle myself there, and plus, it was all in the interest of a really good scoop for Rhythm of Life. To Mr. Wonderful, the thought of a gay bar was not only stomach turning, but the cause for several hours of verbal abuse. None of us would know that right off the bat however, because it looked like we parting ways with Kara’s latest soul mate.

When our cab arrived, it was John, the same driver we had had on the way to the club. Kaylee announced that she had kissed Mr. Wonderful’s father, and that that had been another layer of icing on the weird flavored cake that was slowly destroying Mr. Wonderful’s evening. As the driver continued, Kaylee, once again helping me out asked the driver to give us his worst dating story ever.

Apparently John’s worst date went all the way back to High School Prom. He had taken the time to ask his dream girl out, spent the money on the tux, the limo, all of it. He picked her up and it was going to be an evening of fun, but two hours into their evening he caught her making out with the captain of the football team. John, ever the optimist however, simply left, walked home, grabbed his motorcycle and went out for a long drive to clear his head.

We arrived at the gay bar, paid our respects to John, thanked him for his story and then proceeded to head in. Before we could make it however, we were greeted by honking horns, and a voice yelling “KARA!” We all turned around only to see Mr. Wonderful waiting for us in his brother’s car. Kaylee and I rolled our eyes and headed in, but it took Kara a few more minutes to arrive, Mr. Wonderful in tow.

Kaylee and I proceeded to have a nice conversation for close to half an hour before a lesbian invited her to play pool. Kaylee and Mr. Wonderful were dancing on the empty dance floor, leaving me alone at the table, scanning the scene for the perfect story. I thought I had found the perfect brain to pick, but I couldn’t do anything about it with Mr. Wonderful there. What can I say, while I can act, I’m not THAT good.

Meanwhile, Kaylee was having performance anxiety of her own. Her little lesbian was proving hard to shake. A harmless request for the location of the bathroom ended in Sue, her guide for the evening following her in and carrying on casual conversation. Sue was in her forties, and looked like she should either be driving a bus or heading a motorcycle gang. Kaylee put peeing aside, and rejoined her new friend on the dance floor.

I was just about to begin the casual conversation that was SUPPOSED to be the topic of this particular article, when I saw Mr. Wonderful storm off, followed by a rather dejected looking Kara who sat down at our table and immediately began scrawling on a cocktail napkin “I was dumped in one night by a guy I don’t even know.” Over and over and over again. I had invited Joe Random over to my table so that I could get my own story. Kara and Kaylee had both given me plenty to work with already, however the point of the evening was to get as many as possible, and I felt sure that Joe had something to share.

It took about five minutes before Kara, ever pissed at being dumped by a dork, grabbed Kaylee to leave. It took another minute to get Kaylee out because Kaylee had grabbed something of her own…Sue the lesbian.

I ended up closing the bar and feeling like a little lost by the end of the night, because Joe Random had a story to tell. No matter what horrible things I would hear from Kara about her past relationships, or the ones I’ve heard from anyone whom I’ve exploited in the sake of a column, Joe’s made me the saddest, and most grateful for only a few embarrassing moments in the timeline. I’ll get to Joe’s story later. He and his friend who had joined him later gave me a ride back to the hotel, and I was ready to escape to my thoughts and begin outline this particular article.

What I actually got to do was a little on the unpredictable side. I walked into my hotel room to find Kaylee, Kara, and Mr. Wonderful. Kara was very drunk, Kaylee was very happy to see me, and Mr. Wonderful was still…well…a total asshole. He asked me why I came home alone, and if it was because there weren’t any cute guys at the bar. I rolled my eyes, while Kaylee began to probe me for information. I didn’t feel comfortable talking in front of Mr. Wonderful, so I told them all I couldn’t remember much and crawled into bed.

Kaylee crawled in after me, and I had a wonderful night’s sleep with a gorgeous blond in my arms. The sleep however, took awhile to come, as I listened to Mr. Wonderful and Kara argue on the floor. Apparently his little foray into the gay bar, made him convinced he was going to get some. Kara was alright with making out, but was growing to realize what Kaylee and I had realized all night. This guy was an asshole. I appreciated that Kara stood up for me, even though if he had really known us he would have known he was about to end up in my weekly column. I wondered what was up from the asshole just as I heard a loud gasp from Kara’s side of the room, as I found out later, she wondered what was up her asshole.

There are three types of guys, Boob guys, Leg guys, and Butt guys. Apparently the butthead was a butt man to boot. Kara crawled back into bed, leaving Mr. Wonderful to spend a wonderful night on the floor alone with no pillows or blankets.

We awoke the next morning to find Mr. Wonderful still there. We were all beginning to wonder when he was going leave, so we grabbed our stuff to take it out to my truck, giving him a perfect exit. He called his mom for a ride, and spoke to her like I’ve never heard anyone speak to their mothers before. “Hey beeotch, come pick me up.”

There are things I embellish for the sake of a good article. This is the shit you just can’t make up.

As we walked to my truck, someone made the unfortunate decision to mention breakfast. Mr. Wonderful ushered us into the beautiful restaurant downstairs and proceeded to cause us another agonizing twenty minutes of no conversation. When his mom finally called his cell phone to let him know she was waiting outside in the mini-van, we rejoiced and ordered coffee as we finished our breakfast.

Kara’s night was obvious, so we skipped her. All we needed to know was that at the bar they ended up in after the gay bar, Mr. Wonderful had walked back into Kara’s life.

At the same bar, Kaylee started talking to a man who turned out to be not only a postman, but bipolar as well. They chatted for awhile, and he slapped her. Kaylee never being one to take things lightly slapped him back then kissed him. They kissed, then slapped, then kissed and slapped. Had I been there to witness it, I might have made some witty comparison to a bad B Hollywood romance movie. Eventually they made it back to the hotel with Mr. Wonderful in tow and I knew the rest of the story.

Now all eyes were on me for my excursion. I’m not generally one to go to a bar alone, let alone a gay bar, so they wanted to know what had made me stay until closing time, and how the hell I made it home.

Now for Joe Random’s story. I saved it for the end because it made me realize, I was thinking about everything the wrong way. We all claim bad dating stories, but we don’t have the obstacles to overcome that some people do.

Joe went on a truly bad blind date with a guy his friend had set him up with, and left partway through the evening. Someone had seen him on what was obviously a date with a man and decided to show him just how unacceptable that was by beating the crap out of him in an alley.

I talked with Joe all night, and while there was no attraction in any way, shape or form, I realized two things about myself. I can survive in bars without my friends, and that there is no magic preset number of friends that one person is supposed to have. Kaylee left Traverse City with three kisses and a cuddle session under her belt, while Kara left with more evidence for why her new “Not a whore in 2004” New Years resolution was such a good idea.

I left Traverse City that day with three things. My next column, two of my best friends, and the phone number of a brand new one.