Quiet Time.

There are times when it's appropriate to be loud as all getout...

e.g.:

-in the middle of the a wheat field with your (naked) cousins, using candy Easter eggs as body paint.

-ordering a shot of whisky at 1:55 AM on West Sixth Street.

-screaming at your sister to give you back your super cool track pants stolen from HHS, 1999.

Then there are other times. When it's time. To shut

the hell

up.

To shut the hole in your face. Your trap. Your pie hole. Your yapper.

When I get off work, if it's not 2 AM, I like to go to a favorite spot of mine and sit at the bar and have a beer or two, wind down and go home. Most often, there's a friend or five around who are there and I'll politely exchange with them, then keep to myself and enjoy a beverage, maybe momentarily chat with the bartender, watch "Cheers," etc.

But sometimes, there's a loud crazy bitch at the bar, who has been there since Happy Hour, and wants to gab at everyone who walks in the door, about Obama and Healthcare and bisexuals and transgendered persons, and eventually will get kicked out because she's going to lunge at my friend Willis and try to strangle him, and all the while I am sitting, helpless to her ranting and raving, wishing that I would have done to a different bar to drink my beer, praying for her trap to shut.

What is it with loud people? Every day, my bar fills up with (mostly) men, watching sports, quietly. I watched last weekend as one guy who had brought one of his girlfriends along, rolled his eyes and sat in complete misery for three or four hours while she yapped her face off and he, trying to watch football, tried his best to respond to her questions and stay interested in her conversation, when really all the poor dude wanted to do was enjoy his Sunday, eat pretzels, drink beer and flirt with the bartender.*

And it's not just women. I know a couple dudes who realllly lovvve to be the loudest person in the room. While I know that I can be especially obnoxious sometimes too, I try not to make it a regular habit.

My buddy Todd said one day, "I wanna hang out and drink a beer with me." I get that. I think I'd enjoy it as well. I like me pretty okay. But then we started talking more about this idea.

Todd: "But I think I'd get annoyed with myself after a while."

Me: "Yeah, like all the crap about yourself you pretend is okay. It would really be starring you in the face then. There's no denying it."

Todd: "I think I would have to punch me in the face."

Me: "Yeah. I'd be like, 'Geeeeezzz, Brynnan! I've already heard that story, like, one billion times! And you're really terrible at the joke telling. Enough already! And you can go ahead and stop the writing everything in the air with your fingers, it's really getting old.' "

Todd: "Yep. I'd fight myself for sure."

I might just have to agree with that...

There are also times at the watering hole when you're sitting silently, minding your own, and the patron beside you, who is equally as kept to him/herself as possible, wants to engage you, but only briefly. I know the woman beside me doesn't want to talk to me, and she knows I don't want to talk to her. And the two of us, respecting the other's wish to not get too involved in one another, the conversation goes something like this:

Woman beside me at Donn's Depot, as she gets up to go to the bathroom: "Gotta go powder my nose."

Me: "Okay, I'll save your seat."

And later, as she is leaving for the night, the exchange that unfolds is one of familiarity and ridiculousness.

Woman: "Well, it's my witching time."

Me: "You're gonna turn into a pumpkin."

Woman: "I got a long way to go."

Me: "Be careful."

The End. Weird. And what just happened?

*I do not allow men at my bar to flirt with me. Unless I want them to.