So as I’ve mentioned, once a week I go out and drink. Recently, the past two or so months, I’ve been going, with a friend (Joe) to one bar. It’s a great jazz bar downtown.

Now, they have live music every single night of the week, but Mondays they have a band that only plays on Monday so that’s when we go. I love thems. So I give up my Monday night and go have a few beers, listen to a few sets of good jazz and hang out with Joe and M. the bartender.

It’s a great place once you settle in. They have a coffee machine so M. makes us coffee (she’s never charged for it, either). I’m a coffee snob some days, so is she and Joe can be as well. So last week when they only had some foil packets of cheap-ass brew I drank it, sure, but it wasn’t amazingly great coffee.

So on my way over to the bar last night I stopped and got some fresh French Sumatra. It’s that kind of bar.

Anyway, they open at about 8 and I show up at about 8. Joe shows up 10-20 minutes later. When I get there, normally, there are maybe two people there who don’t work there. The band is still setting up. M. and whichever waitress is working that night are ordering dinner.

So I sit in the same seat I always do and we chat for a bit and hang out. This is the normal start to my Monday night. People filter in, but slowly, Joe gets there and he sits where he always sits. We hang out, we drink, we listen to music.

This week I got there and the place was far more crowded than usual. So I sat down, M. hadn’t gotten to order dinner yet, there was already a bit of a crowd, it was strange. But then some old ladies decided to sit down, one of them where Joe sits. I didn’t care, because I knew he wouldn’t care. So long as we’re sitting together so we can talk and shoot the shit the exact placement doesn’t matter.

M. started to say something to the ladies and they moved to the other side of me and sat down. Ok. Whatever. I didn’t really think about it.

Then this guy comes in and sits a seat over. No problem. But the chair wobbles. So he moves over into the next seat and M. comes over and says, “That seat’s actually reserved,” and slaps down the bar’s little metal “Reserved” sign.

The guy looks confused and so do I. Reserved for who? Well whatever, the guy asks if he can at least swap chairs so the wobbly one isn’t where he’s sitting. Yeah, no problem.

I catch M.’s eye and look at the seat. She nods. Oh. Ok.

Joe comes and looks at his seat for a second. I start laughing. The women next to me, who were also kicked out of our little seating section ask if he’s someone famous. No, no he isn’t.

Now, it’s a great way to be made to feel like a regular. It is. It also made us feel like damned lushes. We’re at the bar so often the seats have our names on them? Fuck me.

Of course, part of that is because M. does all her cutting (limes, lemons, last night a pomegranate that she then decided she had to try and quick infuse vodka with) right there and she knows we won’t mind a cutting board an inch from our beers.

Still.

Fuck me, way to make me feel like a lush.