Saturday Night Sandwich

by MPLS Lumberjacker Lars J Larson

So as winter approaches the Twin Cities area, and grey takes over the sky. I have realized one thing this past summer. That I am old. Not like grey hair, Corvette driving, Viagra old. Like damn all my friends passed me by and I'm left by myself old. All my running mates are either married, married with kids, in long term relationships chained to a couch watching HGTV or they’re raging drunks that only want to hang out at the same 2 local bars and end up blacking out by 11:00pm. Natural Ice is a killer, boy.

I'm 30, single with no prospects, and my life has been a lot less interesting since I left the small lights of the ego-stroking local music scene for school and a full time job. I squeeze in some softball and baseball during the summer, but most weekends I am at Milio’s at midnight eating sub sandwiches by myself like some sad fuck. I sit and get fat while I watch groups, couples and lushes of people bar hop and have fun through the windows, it's like I'm watching another world. I remember that world, except that world for me always crashed into boredom by 1AM if I didn’t find Halle Berry out on the dance floor. And so the drunken text messages begin to random girls with Jim Morrison quotes and wanna-be Princeisms. It was cute the first time. The second time, annoying. Sorry Missy.

The next days I view updated photos on social networking sites and realize I am never going to drink again. Besides throwing up meaningless gang signs, my lazy eye just gets lazier and my paleness just turns beet red after that last Bazooka Joe. The photos are a hot mess. I look like Nick Carter pre celebrity rehab. I want to hide forever...(Read More)

After a couple Coronas slide down the OxyContin tongue, I sip some water for the pending mess ahead. The adjustments outside the club at bar close these days are too much. From hearing auto-tune for the last three hours, it takes a good thirty minutes for your brain to react to English again. People seem to huddle in meaningless circles in places you need to walk, and of course you’ve got “angry drunk guy” trying to fight anyone who he thinks looked at his pretend girlfriend. The stampeding police horses compete with eager taxi cab drivers looking for that long fare out to the burbs; they look for Ed Hardy shirts and tight jeans as targets. Lines form at various food joints, with randoms yelling “wooo” into the cloud of pepper spray that hovers over
the dirty street.

Every night is a blank mission for the single 30 year old. Why did I just waste another night? What happened to my money? And who stepped on my clean Air Force Ones? With the car full window-to-window, the drive home is internal arguments about cigarettes, booty calls and White Castle; only minutes later everyone is singing Jodeci. I finally get a text message back; it says, “Don’t ever text me again.” Damn. As I sit and take another bite of my Skinny Longhorn, after much thought I decide maybe a sandwich on a Saturday night is just what I need.