RNO (REDUX)

7.1.2018 (first published this week 2001)

A lady friend threw me a birthday party last week. All my friends and a lot of you lovely list members were there. I’ve never been the “victim” of a surprise party before – let alone one that was surprising – but it was fun. I fully wasn’t expecting it: My brother called and said something like, “Hey, what’s going on?” I said, “Oh, you know, unpacking … settling in.”
“What say you meet me downstairs in five? I’ll be in a Vets taxi.”
I was game. “I’m game. See you in five.”

The familiar Vets cab wheeled up minutes later and my brother threw open the door and threw me a domestic light beer.
“Hop in. It’s a short trip.”

Well it wasn’t exactly short, but it wasn’t too bad. Veteran’s taxi to the airport, Southwest B737-300 to Reno, Dodge minivan to the Cal-Neva resort in North Lake Tahoe. We B-lined it to a villa that I guessed, from its vantage, had a killer lake view. You see, I was concentrating on the view and wondering if this was the actual villa that a certain JFK clandestinely encountered a certain MM back in the early ‘60’s and not that it was my birthday and this jetting to exotic locales was a bit irregular and suspicious. My brother pops open the door and Surprise! I was very much surprised.
I said thanks, toasted to myself when they sang “For he’s a jolly good fellow,” and was a darn good spirit when the obligatory 31 punches in the arm started to sting. All my favorites magically appeared. Domestic light beer, Makers Mark Manhattans, corndogs … Friends I haven’t seen in years came up and wished me well. Folks from Arizona, Chicago, NYC … someone even brought my cats. Fatty squawked a happy birthday and Junior purred best wishes from under the couch where he hid. What a treat.

When the ruckus subsided, I checked the place out. A pretty swanky joint. Nicely decorated, furnished and goddang it smelled like a spring morning. I cooled it on a very comfy sofa and looked out on the lake. A beautiful view indeed. I chatted with some long lost friends, sipped a domestic light beer and found a bowl of snack mix within reach. Oh shit was that stuff good. Whoever came up with the buttery salty cerealy pretzelly brown breaddy goodness that makes up the shack mix gets into heaven automatically if you ask me. I just about killed the entire bowl when my lady friend, the hostess, came and got the bowl, presumably to refill it. Well no matter, there was another bowl already there. I dug into that sucker too and met a different mix. Gone were the brown breads and cereals. What the hell. I ain’t no snob so I munched it anyway. It had a peculiar tang to it – not exactly bad but kinda odd. It was sorta “woody” too. I washed it down, grabbed another handfull and figured I’d wait for the refilled bowl to come back. As I was listening to Tama tell a great story about a customer service call she recently fielded, the hostess returned with the bowl brimming with goodness. I told her thanks and that this stuff beat the hell out of the mix in the other bowl. She looked puzzled first then gasped suddenly – the other bowl didn’t contain an alternate snack mix, the bowl contained wood chips soaked in fragrant oils. Fucking PotPourri! That was the shit that made the villa smell like a dewey April morn. Goddamn I must have chowed down two three cups of that shit. What the fuck? Kind of a dumb place for a bowl fragrant wood chips if you ask me.

Tonight - Thieves Tavern 

Come and celebrate the TNSC Chief Robot's Bday (in absentia)
** CASH ONLY**

bye-ee!
whrr ... clik!