Poor at the piano bar. (Happy Hour at Howl at the Moon)

Piano guy one: I have a Bon Jovi song here I can play.
Piano guy two: Wait, I have a Bon Jovi song too.
piano guy two starts to play “Living on a Prayer”
Piano Guy one: That’s the song I have. I have five dollars for it.
Piano Guy two: I have two dollars for it.
Piano Guy One: That makes nine dollars!

For the record I paid $5 to hear Bon Jovi’s Living on a Prayer at Dueling Pianos. For the other record, I think I was the only person at my table to get a song played.

So my friend Chelsa from work won a happy hour party at Howl at the Moon which is this totally kick ass piano bar in Chicago. I dragged Em along and met up with Chelsa and the rest of her friends there. We got in free, got a free taco buffet, and got our first two drinks for only a dollar each (after that drinks would have been cheap too, but I gave up as I’m still kinda sickly). I got the most wine I’ve ever seen in my life for a dollar.

The band played songs mostly that I know, or at least pretend to know (I pretend to know the words to a lot of songs) so there was much singing along.

Alas, Chelsa is sick, and Em is sick, and I am sick, so all of us ended up calling it a somewhat early night.

***

So, you know how I’m always getting mistaken for being 16? Yeah, well, I guess I am now also mistaken for being poor…

Here’s how this one went down.

I leave the bar and hop in a cab. Immediately I start rummaging around my purse for cash. If you know me at all you know that a) I have a pretty damn big purse (because I usually keep a book in there and often my huge camera) and b) I really don’t use a wallet. Seriously, I have never found a wallet that works so my money just kind of floats around loosely in my purse.

So…I get in the cab and start searching for money. I find a couple of $20s and a $5…well, the $5 turned out to be a ripped in half half of a $5 so that wouldn’t do at all. I really don’t want to give a $20 and ask for change since the ride is sure to only be $5. So I start rummaging for singles that are all wadded up in the bottom of my purse. I find plenty of those. The cab driver drops me off at a far entrance which seems odd, but whatever, it’s closer and cheaper. So I hand him seven 1 dollar bills (about a $2 tip in there too, which is pretty decent). “It’s OK,” he says “If you can’t afford it OK. You keep.”

“Ummm, no it’s OK.”

“You sure? You can’t afford?”

“NO, I can afford, bye.”

Seriously, what the fuck?