-Happy Hour, Happy Hornbook: The Mixed Blessing-

Ah, Happy Hour at Houlihans. I knew and liked two of my coworkers; two more I was meeting for the first time.

Setting: End of the work day. A restaurant in Stripmall hell; middleaged, middle management types wander about in blue oxford shirts and dark cocktail dresses. Waitresses with black shirts and white eye-liner (white-eyeliner - who thinks that looks good?) sell half-priced food and drink.

That ought to give you a mental picture. Glorious.

Too bad these people aren't any better at communicating outside of work. They talk about - work. Or stare into their faux-asian lettuce wraps. The five-minute office birthday party earlier that week was relaxed by comparison. (Bob Powers nailed that phenomenon, by the way.)

But before you give up on office weasels, I should mention that attempts were made to talk past the "What do you do for a living?" In fact, my happy hour homies skirted right past milder topics of recipes, sports, community service activities, slipped right over moderate to difficult subjects like interior design (that's a different circle) sports teams, even that fiesty bugbear, politics. On to religion.

Jesus. You point out a major liturgical holiday's pagan origin, and the souls of the holy couple next to you stiffens as if hit by some divine viagra.

I'm not baiting anyone. I think trading a human sacrifice for a yule log is a good thing.
The only tolerant thing said couple did all night was smile and suggest we do this again sometime.

"Sure." - Translation - "Give me a lot of time to think about it."