The Watering Hole

AKA Grisanti's

• There was a cute little waitress at Grisanti's, about twenty years old, serving drinks and breaking the young men's hearts.
  
  At some point she disappeared for a week and then one night walked in wearing a short skirt and white leather boots. She sat down with a few of us junk mail regulars and filled us in. She had acquired the boots during a week long skiing vacation in Colorado. She and a male companion had had a very good time there and she was still quite excited about it all.
  
  Several days later a few of us were sitting around a table next to the bar, playing Liar's Poker or Yahtzee or some game that provoked lots of laughs and groans. In came our waitress with a young man, and she brought him to our table and introduced him as her boyfriend.
  
  Random Junk Mailer to Boyfriend: "So, you like skiing?"
  
  Boyfriend: "No."
  
  And while the rest of us were barely avoiding hernias due to the effort of not laughing . . .
  
  RJM: "You should try it. It's a lot of fun."
  
  
• Having set (and maintained, I am happy to say) standards, revised from time to time as I have aged, regarding the minimum age for any women with whom I might get involved, I acquired a few younger female friends at the junk mail company for which I worked. I don't know how they did it but they had somehow intuited that they were quite safe from me, and there were perhaps a half dozen on whom I could call if I was between girlfriends and needed a fourth (or even a second) for dinner or some circumstance. Later, Debbie acquired the habit of referring to them as "your harem" or "your concubines."
  
  One of these was a young woman named Jennifer and one Friday at work I spotted her from a distance. She was wearing a short black dress and looked good. I didn't get a chance to talk to her and didn't see her again for the rest of the work day. That evening, however . . .
  
  At Grisanti's the usual crowd from the company assembled, and at some point I saw Jennifer, who was *not* one of the regular crowd, standing at the bar and still wearing the black dress.
  
  An older man and woman were seated at the bar and she was standing between them and chatting with them. I grabbed my drink and walked over. I arrived just as the three of them finished some conversation.
  
  Donnie: "Jennifer, the next time I see you wearing that dress I'm going to bite you on the thigh."
  
  Jennifer: "Donnie, have you met my Mom and Dad?"
  
  In no time at all it was all over the bar: "Did you hear what Richards did?"

Debbie - Part II

It was early Friday afternoon and I was to meet Debbie at O'Hare. Friday nights there was always a large contingent of my co-workers at the local watering hole, which at that time was Grisanti's. I had told a few who sometimes did not make it that I'd be there with Debbie, and many friends were looking forward to meeting her.

I met her at the gate, we got her luggage, and we headed for the car. Time had passed and circumstances had changed since last we saw each other. Twenty years earlier I has been just out of the Army and making $95 a week, and now she found herself climbing into a relatively new black and gold Cadillac Sedan de Ville. I think we were *both* pleased about that.

Luggage in the trunk, I drove to a restaurant and bar not too far from the Grisanti's we would head for later. We sat in the lounge, ordered drinks, and talked non-stop for several hours. She told me she had a return flight on . . . what? Sunday? Monday? I don't remember. I told her whatever was convenient for her was fine with me. Surprisingly, even after all those hours of conversation on the phone, we managed to find more old times to talk about - along with updates concerning current times.

A few minutes before five o'clock we hopped into the car and headed for Grisanti's, where a few of the regulars had already kicked things off. Debbie must have met thirty or so new people that night, and I was amazed to learn later that she remembered every name. Sometime during the first couple of hours another couple, Jack and Karen, claimed the right to have dinner with us that night at Victor's, a fine dining restaurant in Rolling Meadows, now defunct, alas. Another couple, Jeff and Cassie (see "Me and Cassie At a Ball)" reserved Saturday night for dinner at the Wellington in Arlington Heights (still there, I am happy to report).

Well, Debbie's introduction to the crowd at Grisanti's was a rousing success, and around eight or eight thirty four of us headed for Victor's. Dinner was as much fun, perhaps even more fun. Everyone got along and there were many funny stories told and much laughter to reward them.

I would guess it was around midnight when Debbie and I finally reached home. I retrieved her luggage and put it on the guest room bed, and gave her a tour of the house, emphasizing the locations of anything I could think of that she might want during the night (or in the morning, if she arose before I did).

I told her I was glad she had come, gave her a quick peck on the lips, and headed off to my bedroom. I took my shirt off and tossed it on the dresser and two seconds later her blouse landed on top of it. I turned and she was standing there unbuttoning her skirt and looking at me as if to say "You know I'm sleeping in here, right?"