waiting for another coat of bronze.By the end of our day at the salon,everything was taking on a kind of circusvibe as we decided to go to Target to buythe most ridiculous clothes that we couldfind. (It should be noted that in the interestof realism, we should have gone somewheremore appropriate like Banana Republic, orUrban Outfitters, but we had both alreadyspent upwards of $60 by the time we gotto Target, <strong>and</strong> we planned on saving therest for drinks.) As we arrived at the Breeze(that’s right, the Breeze) we were the onlyAND NO ONE GIVES THEM SHIT FOR IT!Foiled by our inability to shock people,<strong>and</strong> weirded out by the fact that we werest<strong>art</strong>ing to get drunk enough to occasionallyforget how utterly stupid we looked, Josh<strong>and</strong> I headed back inside the beltline foreven more drinks. We had expected tobe gawked at, perhaps even made fun of.None of this happened. If anything, we wererevered for our steadfast <strong>and</strong> superficialdedication to marijuana. What a fucking letdown! I was even told that I looked goodin a sleeveless lycra shirt, at which pointDon’t worry about it,” he said as he eyedthe milky tantoo of a pot leaf on my arm<strong>and</strong> gave me a reassuring pat on the back.ones on the patio, <strong>and</strong>, more importantly,we were the only ones wearing form-fittinglycra, or for that matter, short shorts. Wewere again having problems muffling ourmanly giggling when the aging waiter thatI had actually recognized from prior visitsspotted us.“Hey, man. Can I help you guys?” heasked.“Yeah,” I came back, “is it too early for usto just sit <strong>and</strong> get drinks?”It was 4:30 P.M.“Oh,no”, he said “we’re totally laid backhere, man. Don’t worry about it,” he said ashe eyed the milky tantoo of a pot leaf on myarm <strong>and</strong> gave me a reassuring pat on theback.As fast as I could, I ordered my tokenBreeze cocktail: <strong>The</strong> Singapore Sling.Josh ordered a lite beer, <strong>and</strong> we only hadto wait a minute or so.“I recognize this fucking guy,” I said.Within minutes, I ordered a secondround.“Another Mai Tai, coming up!”“It’s actually a Singapore Sling,” I said,at which point he stared, again, at the potleaf on my arm <strong>and</strong> said “ My bad, shortterm memory, man, it’s the first to go, ” <strong>and</strong>then winked at me as he continued, “Man,that looks like something I grew on mywindowsill in college. I know that ain’t nopalm tree.”I was st<strong>art</strong>led. “Holy shit! We’ve tappedinto an entirely different demographic thanI expected!” I whispered to Josh.We giggled through about four roundsof drinks before the regular clientele rolledin <strong>and</strong> disappointed us by not giving us asecond glance. It’s true, people look as dumbas we did right then on an everyday basis;it’s just hard to accept the cold hard realitythat certain people look this way every day:I decided that I was done with my quasisociologicalexperiment <strong>and</strong> my main focuswould now be on getting hammered.Josh agreed, <strong>and</strong> over the course ofthe several hours of drinking, no one reallymade a spectacle of us at all. We went to<strong>The</strong> Rockford, Humble Pie, <strong>and</strong> <strong>The</strong> Jackpotrespectively <strong>and</strong> nobody even bothered toridicule us, throw things at us, or so much ashurl epithets at us! We were simply left todrink in peace, with only a few people whoknew us personally asking, “What the fuck isup with you guys?”Halfhe<strong>art</strong>edly, at this point, we wouldreply “Oh, man, this is just how we roll.”In the end, this only proved that Josh<strong>and</strong> I had just wasted a great deal of time<strong>and</strong> money trying to make a spectacle ofourselves.For what it’s worth, we had a blast,failed experiments notwithst<strong>and</strong>ing. ButI can’t help but think we should havegone somewhere a little less metro <strong>and</strong>sophisticated. Maybe we should have gonesomewhere like the Office Tavern or <strong>The</strong>Little Bar. We would have garnered attentionat one of those places, wouldn’t we?It’s hard to say, the pot leaf might havebeen our saving grace. Much like the time Iwatched some friends of mine avoid gettingthe beat down of their lives after spillingbeer on a Harley-Davidson at Bike Week inMyrtle Beach by chanting “U.S.A.! U.S.A.!”over <strong>and</strong> over again until the rugged bikerwas pacified by his unrelenting patriotism. Itjust goes to show that it’s hard to be openlyridiculed in these politically correct timesof ours.And we just wanted to be made fun ofagain…you know, like it was in high school.
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