unhappy hour

I went out for Happy Hour last night and didn't love it.  I had been looking forward to it all week because a bunch of my martial arts classmates and gym buddies would be there.  Plus, after a REALLY horrible and anxiety-provoking week (yes I did have a sip of rum for breakfast one morning to calm my nerves), I had some great news Friday afternoon and wanted to celebrate.

I suppose my expectations were already too high at this point.

I drove across town in rush hour traffic to a place with very limited, metered street parking.  Yay, my favorite.  :\

After passing by the bar twice (without actually seeing it), I found a relatively safe parking spot where my abysmal parallel parking skills were put to the test.  Only 5 short corrections later, I was in.  Success.  Now, to get out without getting hit.  I then got to the meter and discover it took quarters only.  Welcome to 2002.  I got back into my car to figure out what to do when I remembered my emergency quarter roll stash for this reason.

I threw a bunch of quarters in the meter and went off in search of this hole in the wall.

Dark and LOUD.  Because I was driving and not having an anxiety attack, I wasn't drinking.  I greeted several people warmly, posed for photos, said WHAT? many, many times, and ended up watching the Bulls Celtics NBA Playoff game on the giant TV.

What's the point of going out to socialize if no one can hear each other?

I left after a couple hours of watching my friends deteriorate into drunken behavior and was so happy to get home and climb into bed.