a rare tolerance to the future

It was a choice between “Birth of the Cool” and “A Love Supreme.”

Nobody could make a decision.

They were all too busy complaining about their parents.

Eddie said, “My dad says to me, my father worked harder than me, and I worked harder than you.”

That was the way the rest of the evening unfolded.

Not enough ownership.

Too much projecting.

A guy who needed a haircut and a good f**k said, “Me, I love ugly girls…Pretty women can do anything… but ugly women have to do everything…”

Somebody’s cell phone rang.  Twenty people reached for theirs.

“Is it yours?  Whose is it?  Is that you?”

By the time the owner of the ringing phone answered it, the caller had hung up.

A tiny shrill voice shouted, “HEY LET’S PLAY SCATEGORIES!”

But nobody said anything.

Then the tiny shrill voice, now no more than a whisper, mumbled, “Or not…”

Eddie started in on his dad again. “My father says, your sister has perseverance, your brother has perseverance, you’re the only one who doesn’t have perseverance…”

Everything that night was right down the middle.

By the time I’d left, they were memorializing each other.

Entropy had once again brought a roomful of people to their knees.