Remembrance of things Pabst

So the tax season is finally over more or less and things can get back to normal. Now this tax season was a lot different from prior years. What I used to do was use the season to catch up with a bunch of friends. They would come to my office to do their taxes for free and then they would take me and the missus out for dinner. So we were guaranteed to meet up at least once a year. But this year I sent out a letter telling everyone that I wasn’t doing it anymore. Just about the only one whom I didn’t send it to was my best friend.

You see we know each other since we are five years old and since I was stuck doing them I could do it for one more year. So I set it up for him to meet me on Saturday at the office and then we would drive back to Brooklyn to meet the wife after she closed the store.

But the same thing happens to us that happens to busy people everywhere. He was having his new kitchen tiles grouted and kept calling me to delay coming in. Which was fine because I was still working but he didn’t get to me till about 9pm. It took about an hour so we didn’t get on the road till 10pm and made the store just about at 11pm.

Now that sucked because a lot of the better restaurants were closing up. You see even though New York is the City that Never Sleeps there are a lot of fucking people who want to close up and go to bed early. Most of the joints in the neighborhood close about eleven. I mean the wine and cheese is open late and the diner but the Thai joint and the Italian places all shut up shop around eleven. We could have gone to Hanley’s for bar food but we are getting too old for that and we wanted to save our stomachs. We had to find a place to eat and we had a limited window.

First we jumped in the car and sped off to Downtown Atlantic. Which was closed up tighter than a Republican sphincter when you talk about raising taxes. So that was out.

Then we sped down Court St. to the Mexican Joint. No we eat in there once or twice every other week. It is one of the places we go to a lot and they all know us there. It is sandwiched between two yuppie hipster dofous joints that served late but I wouldn’t go into on a bet. So they have been staying open later to get the overflow. There were still people there when we walked in. I asked if we could eat and the guy behind the bar says sure. I think he is the owner but I am not sure because he doesn’t come out and talk much. He just goes “just order everything you want now so they can start cooking.” So we put in our order right away and order drinks and are talking and laughing. Now one thing I should say is that normally we don’t drink as much as we used to. Well I don’t since the wife is not much of a drinker. But when I was with my old buddy we fell into our old habits and had four beers before the appetizers got there. Drinking is like riding a bike. You don’t forget how to do it and you fall down a lot.

Anyway we had a lot of fun catching up and eating and stuff and before you know it we got last call. In a freakin’ Mexican restaurant. The wife got a little irate but I told her they did extend their hours a lot for us so we really didn’t have a complaint. The waiters were very apologetic but the owner guy just wanted to go home which I understand. He had to be back early the next day and we didn’t so you have to be reasonable.

The whole night worked out fine. Except for one thing. They kept playing that stupid Mexican Polka music. Man that shit is annoying.