Sunday 31st JAnuary 2010 - An Explosive Joke

          I gave in and settled for a MacBigBreakfast.  It was good enough.

          But the ablutions were not.  There was insufficient hot water to fill the bath, and an American bath at that.  So Sunday did not get off to a good start.  Although the almost cold shower afterwards was quite bracing.

          The roads looked OK, but the pedestrian route looked quite challenging.  It would likely be just too much on the way back; especially if my consumption was unconstrained.  I decided Silver had to be pressed into service in the role of minder.

          I had hardly settled in when a man came  in, sat beside me, and ordered a Glenlivet on ice, with a slice of lime.  The barman remarked on the presence of a Scotsman.  I pointed out that taste was an aesthetic matter, not admitting of general rules.  The man said he usually drank it straight, but he was on an errand, and this concoction slowed him down.  He had a Scottish name, and confessed, rather wistfully, that he had never been to Scotland.

          Someone across the bar recommended Irish whiskey.  This turned out to be a surprisingly generous recommendation, since he had worked for Dell here until they upped stakes and went to Ireland, for the tax breaks and the cheaper labour. 

          He was now a maker of automatic weapons.  I didn't quite know what to make of that.  I guess governments will always buy them from somebody.  He walked with the aid of a crutch, and had one foot wrapped up in one of those ski-boot-like things they use now instead of plaster.  I tried to resist, but it was Sunday lunch in the bar, so I just had to ask him if he'd shot himself in the foot.  He took it in good part.  In fact, he'd driven his car into a tree, so he was lucky to be there at all. 

 

          I was holding forth about what a fun place Nashville was, when a young lady said she knew a bar in Nashville where they sold a terrific cocktail called an 'Irish Car Bomb".  I told her I thought we were all against terrorism now, and that was an unkind thing to bring up when there was a Brit present. 

          She didn't quite understand.  So I produced one of my 'Tam O'Shanter' moments.  You may recall that, much the worse for the drink, Tam is spying on the warlocks and witches dancing in Alloway kirkyard, and is so excited by one of the dancers in a short dress, he cries out "... 'Weel done, Cutty Sark', And, in a moment, all was dark."  I said to the young lady that calling it an Irish Car Bomb was a bit like calling it a "nine-eleven".  The bar went very quiet.

          I was thinking of elaborating the tale, Tam O'Shanter fashion, to have Silver getting his tail shot off by an irate crippled gunsmith as we fled the parking lot, pursued by angry natives, but they took it in good part, and were most hospitable.  I expect, though, they'll remember what at least one Brit thought of making jokes about Irish Car Bombs.