Let's Get This Party Started

At least the neighbor kid is an ally.

He's a decent kid, Jack, whose mother used to make him shovel my sidewalk. He's just a little shocked to be sharing a corner of the bar at the Pub with me.  And now that we've established that I am he lady who peeled off bills to pay him for clearing my walk while burping a gassy infant on my shoulder, he's appropriately respectful. Buys me a drink.

It is called a Mind Eraser.  Oh, to be in my 20s again.

The other kid, Logan, is trouble. He can't decide whether to choose the path of sending me his resume and pursuing employment or flirting with me and pursuing a one night stand.

I'll entertain the first idea.  A recruiter is always recruiting.

The second idea is just ridiculous.

Never. Gonna. Happen.

Not. That. Desperate.

Logan has been out for a cigarette (which would be a deal breaker even if he were my age, single, gorgeous and independently wealthy. Mama's not a fan.) but returns shortly after I've downed my Mind Eraser and bought a round of beers for Jack and me. Least I can do for the kid who took on 300 feet of sidewalk completely against his will because his mother made him.

He begins to flirt with me.

I tell him that he's just asked me for a job opportunity and he would be wise to treat the rest of our conversation like I am his potential employer. 

He decides to tell me that I am hot. A cougar.

Now I have heard everything. I tell him that he really needs to look around the bar for someone his own age.
He tells me he is 39 (which would still be too young) and asks the female bartender to corroborate his story.

She's my kind of girl. She tells him to get over himself and tells me he is 27. 

I try to put things in perspective for him.  I remind him that I was probably having a perfectly legal drink in this very pub he night his mother brought him home from the hospital in a diaper and onesy. 

But he is undeterred. Tells me that when he returns from the men's room, he's going to kiss me.

I tell him that that is how I'd know he's not my age. No one in their 40s would ever try to double up and get a date and a job out of the same pick up situation on a Saturday night in a bar.  A or B. Never all of the above.

He walks (staggers) in the general direction of the men's room and I look at Jack.

"That's my cue. Cover me." And with that, I walk out the door and head for home. There are girls in tight jeans and Mardi Gras beads dancing on the bar.  The crowd is lively, laughing. My hair still looks fabulous.
But I am cutting through the municipal parking lot to disappear into the shady dark neighborhood I live in.

I am asleep before Charlotte texts me asking if she should come to the pub.