Bartender, There’s an Olive in My Soup

I� now live in a parallel universe.

In this universe, people eat at bars, not drink. You have trouble getting a place or a seat at a bar to drink.

Everyone is eating, elbow to elbow, one long table, menus, wineglasses, knives and forks, bread baskets and butter plates, entrees, salads and desserts, like a commissary from hell. Drinkers are second-class citizens, forming an obedient second tier, a peanut gallery, balancing their cocktail glasses carefully for the mountainous trip over the shoulders of diners, locked together like the Rockies, through the hazardous passes of talking heads and moving arms, back and forth to the bar.