On Politics, American Style

By lex, on November 28th, 2003

Fear and loathing in the blogosphere

Once, at a nice Irish pub (I know many) in Alexandria, Virginia, I was having a soothing pint of Guinness (for strength!) while the ladies of the household were Christmas shopping. A young lady walks in to the rather crowded, very republican (in the Irish sense) place, plops down next to me and smiles to me nicely. Which doesn’t happen all that much, having passed that age where things like that usually happen (and having missed them having happened at all, the first time through). She strikes up a conversation, and it’s quickly apparent to me that 1) she is an employee of a rather sensitive government agency (at the clerical level, I gathered) and 2) this wasn’t the first bar she had frequented that winter afternoon. Sort of explained why she was being so nice to a gent at least 15 years older than her: she had her beer goggles on! Still, company is always pleasant on a cold day, and who was I to judge another’s use of that ol’ demon rum? Been there, done that, myself.