| The One Tooth Bar |
| Dear Friends, on my homepage I told all of you that I might tell you about the One Tooth Bar that I visited in NC. The time has finally come for me to face the nightmare that is the One Tooth Bar and describe for you my hour spent there. My mother and I had driven to a small town in NC to look at various antique shops. We had a pretty good time and found lots of treasures. This particular town had all the antique shops clustered together with a cute little deli right nearby. We had a dee-lish lunch at the deli and then did our shopping. A few hours later, JOHNNYLEEN's throat was parched and he knew it was time for a libation (how predictable, right?). Anyway, I noticed this little bar right in the middle of all the antique shops and it had a big "Cold Beer" sign in front. Well, Dear Readers, because the antique shops had all been fairly upscale, I assumed that this bar was, too. WRONG! My mother and I went in and immediately felt like we had made a mistake. But I was afraid that if we left, the patrons would take offense and pursue us down the street. Everybody in there was already three sheets to the wind (a Southern euphemism for "drunk"). Well, I ordered a beer and my mother ordered water. (They gave her a cup and she had to go fill it up at the bathroom sink!) As we drank our drinks, we kind of surreptitiously looked around and tried not to bring too much attention to ourselves. I noticed a hand-lettered sign above the bar that read, "All tabs must be paid by Friday. No fighting. No drugs." That was hardly confidence inspiring because it implied that the bar had had problems with fistfights and drug use, and that the antique store owners were seeking any excuse to shut the bar down as a blight to their neighborhood. Now, while drug use was not tolerated inside the bar, the rule apparently didn't apply to the small backyard behind the bar. We could see an open door at the back of the building and through that we could see a small patch of grass. People kept going out that back door and then coming back in again. Now JOHNNYLEEN doesn't like to be the suspicious type, but I can't think of any reason for the constant parade back and forth unless drugs were involved. Now, why do I call it the One Tooth Bar? I'll tell you. I noticed that most of the customers (at least the male ones) were missing tons of teeth. Every smile was like a tunnel! And that, Dear Friends, reminded me of those three Ancient Greek demi-goddesses who had to share one eye between them. Hence, the One Tooth Bar, because people gathered there for the purpose of sharing one tooth! Isn't that clever? See, JOHNNYLEEN's education in Classics proved useful for something, didn't it? Go to important matters Go back home |