New Bar Mode

Janet and I had planned to meet at the Hartford Brewery in Downtown Hartford after work on Friday, but an unfortunate car accident sort of put the kibosh on those plans… and by the time all of the paperwork was taken care of, the last thing I wanted to be was in New Bar Mode.

New Bar Mode encompasses all of the rituals that I observe when going to a new bar where I feel I might want to become a regular. It usually entails me being gregarious and talking up the bartenders and regulars to get a good feel for what sort of drinks they serve and what kind of people frequent the place. Though I had been to the Hartford Brewery once before (in December, 1998 when Janet and I were making a trip through Connecticut and NYC&#41, but since we weren't planning on living in Connecticut any time soon, I decided to forego the New Bar Mode rituals then. Now, I just wanted to be somewhere comfortable, where I didn't have to be "on" for the entire night. So, we decided to go down to The Spigot after dinner for a quick beer.

We arrived at the bar at 8pm or so and I was happy to see Jim, our favorite bartender serving up the beers. The Spigot uses a rotating weekend schedule, and it had been so long since we had been there, I forgot that this was his Friday to work. We spotted two seats at the end of the bar and sat down. Jim immediately came over to say "hi" and to take our order, which was a pair of Magic Hat #9s. Since the bar was sort of quiet, he brought us our beers and started to talk about how bad his day had been.

Avery: Your day couldn't have been as bad as mine.
Jim: Oh yeah? Hold on…

Jim then poured himself a double Captain Morgan and Coke and started in on his story. He was on his way to an interview when he was rear-ended by a courier truck, totaling his car: a two month old 1998 Kia Sephia.

Avery: Really? I just got into an accident today too… took out the back driver's side door.
Jim: What kind of a car do you have?
Avery: A 1999 Kia Sephia.

A few minutes of commiserating later, I realized that not only was my accident not nearly as bad as it could have been, but that Friday was definitely a bad day for Kia Sephias.

The one round of beer turned into four for me (a Guinness and two Anchor Liberty Ales&#41 and three (two pints of Guinness&#41 for Janet… and we didn't leave until after 11pm, but I was able to walk out of the bar without the accident induced emotions that I came in with a few short hours earlier.