Date Night

Scene – After viewing Whip It!, Joe and Leah go to a local bar to have a beer and talk. It’s a private event, 4$ cover charge with mandatory ID check in.

Leah – I DON’T HAVE ANY CASH.
Welcome Lady – WEFHOS WHAADT GHDPPOOOAKS HIOAATTTSED! (plus 3 more minutes of unintelligible screaming)
Leah – WHAT?
Welcome Lady, laughing and pulling us inside – FHOOOOSENDA! QHTVEEEIAKALERRRR!

Joe and Leah use sign language and smoke signals to communicate until they go in the restaurant part, hoping to regain some use of their ears. They can’t hear anything the other person is saying. Anything.

Joe – DID YOU CATCH THE NAME OF THE BAND?
Leah – WHAT? I CAN’T HEAR YOU! WHAT’S THIS BAND CALLED? DO YOU KNOW?

Drinks are served. Leah looks to the left and notices a VIP table. An empty VIP table which is actually the corner booth in a room full of empty tables.

Leah – HEY LOOK. GOOD THING THEY PUT UP THE VIP SIGN. THE DEMAND FOR THAT TABLE IS OUT OF CONTROL!
Joe – PIE? OKAY! WHAT KIND OF PIE DO YOU WANT?
Leah – PIPE? INSIDE? WHO HAS A PIPE?

The young lady walking around with an extraneous weight belt over her Tshirt and a pad of paper in her hands, looking all doe-eyed and new and slightly shy, comes and asks us what we want to eat. We don’t know. She comes by 4 more time in the next 5 minutes and asks us the same thing every time.

There is a cameraman walking around trying to make it look like the crowd is much larger than it is using tricky camera angles. Welcome Lady heads to VIP table, opens makeup case holding 287 different kinds of lipstick and starts to preen. Music switches to generic guy band over the bar’s sound system.

Leah – HEY! The band must be taking a break. Or their amp blew. Either way, my ears are still ringing.
Joe – What is that lady doing? Getting ready for her closeup?
Leah – I love her lip gloss. So shiny!
Joe – Seriously. I like when I can hear things.

We decide to order food. We look for the doe-eyed waitress intern for the next 15 minutes with no luck. Suddenly, Welcome Lady comes over and proceeds to welcome us to their shindig and thank us for coming. After a whole 10 seconds of that, she goes into a prepared spiel about living a quiet lifestyle and learning how to celebrate our lives while employing her to coach us through our special journey. Her qualifications include about, oh, 8 years (practiced nonchalant eye roll right when she says 8 showing us JUST how much it doesn’t matter) of fitness modeling. We smile and nod. She moves on to the the next table.

Band starts up. Bar does not turn off background music.

Joe – DO YOU HEAR THAT? IT’S LIKE BATTLE OF THE BANDS!
Leah – THERE ARE TWO SONGS PLAYING!
Joe – WHERE IS THAT WAITRESS INTERN?
Leah – DO YOU THINK THAT INTERN IS EVER COMING BACK? DO YOU WANT TO LEAVE?

Cameraman is taking a white sheet and pinning it to the wall, covering a window and creating a backdrop. He sets up his tripod in the isle about a foot in front of our booth. He steadies his shot, then moves back a few inches. Again. Again.

Leah – IF WE DON’T LEAVE SOON WE WILL BE LOCKED IN FOREVER.
Joe – THAT MAN WANTS TO PUT US IN A CAGE. NO ONE PUTS MY BABY IN A CAGE.

We pantomime leaving with our fingers, then get up and walk out. The evening autumn air is chilled.

Joe – What was the name of that band?

Aaaaaaaaaaaaand Scene.