Who Says You Can't Meet a Man at a Bar?

Drunk Shakespeare

Ingredients:
2 oz Irish Whiskey
½ oz Amaretto
Splash of Cream
2 Maraschino Cherries, for garnish

Directions:
Fill a lowball glass with ice. Combine the Irish whiskey, Amaretto, and splash of cream in the glass. Stir. Garnish with 2 maraschino cherries.


Walking into an Irish bar at ten o’clock in the morning I knew my mother was going to drink me under the table. Eleven years of mother-daughter drinking had set the precedent. What I didn’t know heading into Tom Bergin’s, still drunk from the night before, was that the main objective of my mother’s trip to Los Angeles wasn’t to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day as formerly believed. It was to find me a man!

Inside the dimly lit bar, my mother ordered two Irish Car Bombs and sat us next to the bartender. She always sat next to the bartender because it gave her the geographic advantage of meeting everyone in a ten-stool radius. Unfortunately, the “everyone” in this situation consisted of an eighty-year-old man already deep into the barrel, and a bald Leprechaun.

“Maybe you should try wearing dresses,” my mother said as if the pantsuit was responsible for the gaping hole in my dating life. “You’ve got nice legs,” she said leaning in to suggest a private conversation. “And a great ass,” she yelled as the music stopped.

My eyes burned into the bottom of my drink as I tried to work out just whom she wanted to inform about my ass. I swiveled around on my barstool. The car bomb flipped in my stomach as three bloated middle-aged men walked through the door. My mother smiled in their direction until they felt obligated to sit next to us. They ordered three pints of green beer. I ordered a shot.

Before long, the bar was heaving with enough day-drinkers that my mother tumbled away from the middle-aged men she deemed “fixer uppers,” and into a drunken sea of green. For the next forty-five minutes, she worked the room like the patron saint, and then returned triumphant!

His name was Dan and, according to my mother, was twenty-nine, single and questionably employed. He wore thick-rimmed glasses (more James Dean than Urkel), and had a smile just crooked enough to add character to his Bold and the Beautiful good looks. My quick math suggested he was a 7 out of 10, the highest rating all day (fine, all year).
Now above the line of desperation [5 and under], I decided it was time to celebrate. I stood, straightening my shirt to hide the fat-tire that had formed around my single waist, and ordered another TUD (totally unnecessary drink).

Slowly, the crowd started to melt away until all I could see was an old-fashioned boy from Kansas City and his amazingly white teeth. I swung like a hyperactive kid off his every word until I started to get seasick. I steadied myself on the bar but he never stopped talking. Three stools down, my mother lifted her glass in our direction. She was hopeful; I was fading; and Dan was apparently very thirsty. He downed his Scotch on the rocks, and then planted a kiss on my cheek.

This was all the encouragement my mother needed to start planning our wedding. She slid back down the bar, grabbed her future son-in-law by the hands, and invited him back to my apartment for corn beef and cabbage. My eyes shot open. I fumbled, trying to explain he couldn’t leave his friends, only to learn he didn’t have any. He was here alone.

Stepping into the sunset, the noise from the bar softened. The world slowed down. Everything slowed down aside from Kansas City, who twirled in our direction reciting a botched monologue from Shakespeare’s Macbeth. Off our bewildered looks, he explained he was a thespian.

I shook my head, “You didn’t mention you were an actor.” Dan threw his hands up in dramatic fashion and made an invisible feather over his head as if it were sticking out of a hat. Thespian, he corrected.

My mother whistled for a cab, as I looked sideways at the man she wanted me to marry. Dan bounced over to us with child-like energy, and quickly dipped below the line of desperation. He opened the backdoor to the cab, and whispered, “I like you, Linda.” My mother stopped. I looked up. Who the hell was Linda?

Fifteen minutes later, Dan spun around my apartment as if doing so would erase the Scotch from his mind. My aunt and two cousins arrived for dinner, wondering who the strange man was in my living room. Before they could ask, Dan started to laugh, as if to some private joke, and then threw a Kaiser roll across the room. Calmly, my mother placed her hand on my shoulder and whispered, “At least we know what we don’t want.”

Suggested Number of Drinks: