Band On The Run

The band is hard to describe. I am not encouraged by their appearance.

The bass player takes the stage and begins to tune his guitar. He is dressed like an Amish man. Could have easily just stepped out of a horse and buggy. Or the movie Witness. But then the electric instrument would be a code violation.

The lead singer looks like Uncle Fester. Had he been adopted by the Clampets.

The drummer is pure Deliverance.

I am expecting Dueling Banjos.

But what happens next is magic.
Safety Dance. Gaga. REM.
Dance party utopia.

Kate and I are on the floor jamming. Liberty and Bunny are on the prowl. Penny has been asked by some men (boys?) half her age to go to a bar where people half our age hang out. I can't find anyone else but assume a good time is underway.

Not long after, when the band has taken a break (a break from what?) I come to the realization that we have all had too much sun and too much fun:

- Jill is mad as hell that Liberty is hitting on a guy she thinks is cute. And Jill already has a guy she thinks is cute. So cute she married him.
- I am finding it hard to dance in my flip flops. Really.
- The guys that invited Penny to the youngsters bar are back at the oldsters bar but Penny is not. And we are not really sure we care.
- Kate has begun a life of crime.

I had been admiring the cool graphic on the band's T-shirts. Not that they were wearing them. They were dressed as Amish. But the bartenders were wearing them. And they were kinda cool. When you have had 27 drinks and 6 hours of sun and a Cheeto for dinner.

Kate, thinking she's slick, has maneuvered herself over to the display of T-shirts near the band's equipment and has oh-so-slyly checked the sizes. She's picked her target and is now waiting for opportunity to present itself. And when you are Kate, it always does.

The house music has come on and some great anthem is blaring. A thousand people take to the dancefloor.

Kate makes her move. She removes the T-shirt from its hanger and unobtrusively begins to stuff it down the back of my pants, the waist of which made even smaller by the fact that I've taken off my hoodie and tied it there because of one of my poorly timed hot flashes.

Like no one is going to notice that. I now appear to be wearing a diaper. As if the hot flash didn't scream "Senior citizen in the house!" in the first place.

Sure that we are going to be caught pilfering and forever be ejected from the bar we intend to grow old in, I suggest we leave. And out of nowhere, Jill and Joy appear to join us in the Great Escape.

And we do escape, sans Penny who is still MIA. We wave to her friends as we leave.

But when we pass the old section of the old person's bar, the section where the truly elderly sit and sip cocktails quietly while they pry open their pill cannisters and discuss AARP membership benefits, Kate has a second wind and drags me and my contraband T-shirt in for one last drink.

I am sure I am going to die momentarily, but Kate orders a glass of water at my request, and a beer for each of us because she is sure I am going to spring to life any minute now like the undead. She goes to pay the tab with her hotel key card and I am sure we are doomed. Only Kate can harass a server like Kate. The fun is just beginning. Again.

It is a classic Girls Weekend beginning. And it is only just the beginning.