Here I am! Unky Moe's! Thank you ma'am!

There’s this place in Chicago called the Tilted Kilt. It’s a chain, so there’s probably one in your town too. I was told that it’s like Hooters, but it’s Scottish themed, so all the chicks have pasty, fishbelly beer guts and jacked up teeth and they try to fight you if you’re in there after 3pm when everyone descends into shitfaced depravity. Nah, I’m kidding. It’s like hooters but the waitresses wear tartan miniskirts and bikini tops. That’s really the only difference. The girls are dressed slightly sluttier than they are at hooters. Which, if you’re into that kind of thing, is pretty okay, I guess.
Well, the whole thing sounded a little ridiculous to me. Not in a bad way, but more in a “really? I gotta see this for myself” kind of way. So yesterday I decided to take my bike downtown and have a beer at ‘the Kilt’ and see what all the rhubarb was about, so to speak. My personal assistant agreed to meet me there and we decided to have an “anthropological outing with secretly puerile subtext that we could explain away as bemused disbelief that no one would truly believe, but that no one would really care enough to challenge either.” Not bad. Seemed pretty airtight, I thought.
Well, this place is at least 8 or so miles from my house and I took the lakefront bike path, so I actually rode more like 13 miles, especially because I overshot it by a pretty fair margin because I was enjoying the lakefront and not really too worried about being early. Well, right as I’m at my farthest point from my house, and only about a quarter of a packed, trafficky urban mile from the Tilted Kilt, where my personal assistant was, in theory, waiting for me, I got a phone call. It was my wife. The baby, it seems, had been biting and I had to go pick him up. The daycare, mind you, is right by my house, many miles from where I found myself at that moment, so this meant I had to race back, get our car and get to the daycare by 130. If I didn’t, we’d start receiving fines at the not unoutrageous fare of ten bucks a minute.
This presented a quandary. I was RIGHT THERE at the meeting point, and my assistant was just going to be stuck waiting for me forever surrounded by strippers carrying baskets of hot wings with no indication that I wasn’t coming (because bringing the kid to that place is out of the question). I couldn’t call him because his phone is a…uh, what’s the technical term? Piece of shit? Are they still saying that? Okay, right. His phone is a piece of shit, so the chances of him receiving any phone calls were slim, even in the best of circumstances, and as a result, he almost never carries it with him. Downtown, in the Chicago loop, phone service is horrendous for everyone. My assistant’s phone, if he even had it on him (unlikely), didn’t stand a chance.
The time was 1208. I made the executive decision that I would hurry to the Tilted Kilt, find my personal assistant, let him know that I had to go get the kid, and relieve him of his afternoon duties and leave him free to hang out in the loop with all the other businessmen, ogling women and eating pubstyle nachos.
I made it to the Tilted Kilt at 1222. The place is huge and it’s got shit all over the walls and it’s got absolutely NO female patrons and the girls are indeed dressed in some of the skankiest outfits that the world has ever seen. The girls also shared the common feature of all having kind of pigfaces. I know the theme is ‘scottish’ but really, skinny girls with big (often fake) cans and mangled faces in plaid miniskirts and bikini tops calls to mind semi professional pornography more than Scotland, which let’s face the facts, is probably a good thing for a restaurant. I’d rather eat the craft services at a porn shoot than have a meal anywhere in the UK. Much more appetizing. Just sayin’.
Okay, my assistant hadn’t shown up yet, so I decided I’d wait for ten minutes. That would be 1232. I’d have 58 minutes left to ride my bike home and get the car and pick up the boy. Should be doable.
They had a pretty lame beer selection so I ordered a bottle of coors light and kind of watched everything just happen. But I wasn’t enjoying myself at all. I was thinking about how far I was from home, how crossing the river on a bike is a pain in the ass everywhere (except on Montrose just east of California, but that’s totally irrelevant) and how, were I to miss my deadline for picking up the kid, the truth would inevitably come out that I got the call that he needed to be picked up, and THEN I went to the not-quite-a-titty-bar for a beer before I went and picked him up. Never mind that it was all perfectly logical. It’s not the kind of thing you can just explain, you know? It’s like when Jake Jarmel got in the accident and Elaine stopped in for the Jujyfruits. But arguably worse. Panic started setting in.
I called my assistant, just out of desperation and guess what? Go on, guess. This story gets pretty boring after this, so guess something good.
Nah. He answered. I told him that I had to bail and then I rocketed home and got the kid with ten minutes to spare. We spent the rest of the day walking the dogs and playing with magnets and books. That kid, man. He’s a real dream killer. Today, we’re gonna go to the strip club just to up the ante, and if he fucks around today, tomorrow we’re going to a whorehouse, and if he fucks around tomorrow, we’re gonna get some chloroform and hang out in the bus station.
Nah. We’re going to meet my friends for lunch and then I’ve got some intern interviews to conduct and then band practice tonight. It’s not too late to send in your application for the internship here at BSC. Check yesterday’s post (“No, you’re a turd”) for details.
Cheers, everyone.