Tales from the bar

I realize that CMC is in danger of becoming a blog about weather and drink prices, and that would be too bad.
But if you'll indulge me for a moment.
There is a bar up here that I have avoided since I moved back, for several reasons:

• It's where my favorite wings joint used to be, and I am still bitter
• It specializes in foofy drinks with silly names and things they call "martinis" because they are in martini glasses
• It has a reputation for being the "expensive" bar in town

Whatever.
Tonight, I could avoid it no longer. I did not order a mojito even though I sort of wanted one. That expensive mojito? $5.50. That's not a special; that is what a full price mojito costs.
These people just don't know what they've got. In the big city, I would have paid easily $9 for that drink, $13 if I'd been in an "expensive" bar. Of course, I did not have one, and had a $4 Magic Hat #9 instead, because I love #9 and there's a summer full of mojitos ahead.

Also, as I was leaving, I saw a round piece of plastic on the floor and put it on the table. A friend I was out with asked if that was a Round Tuit, and I fake-laughed for a long time. Normally, that would not be something I'd mention in this space, but this time, this friend said he expected to read about it on City Mouse Country, and the vaudeville performers who raised me always said, "you've gotta give the people what they want."
Come to think, so did the French whore who I used to bum cigarettes from, but she said it with an accent.