Could It Be So?

You have to go out there into the world, or else you deny yourself so much. It's easy to stay home and do things like read, watch TV or in some other manner live vicariously or theoretically. There's no substitute for living firsthand outside of one's home. I get many ideas that way, and today's is one of them. It's less an idea than something that happened to me, which is what many ideas truly are. It never would have happened if I'd stayed home.

It's not a big thing. I went out with friends to a live sketch comedy show, which was fun. I have more to say on the matter, but let us give each facet of the experience its due. Before the show, we met at a decent bar a few doors down from the theater. It was obscenely crowded, to the extent that one wonders if it was legal. Still, we were able to obtain drinks quickly enough. We were not able to find elbow room at any time.

Somehow, the best, most spacious part of this heavily congested bar was the area in between those seated at the bar and a retaining wall which separated that section from the section with tables and booths. We ultimately obtained seats against that wall, but for a while found ourselves standing in front of those people. One, an attractive woman perhaps ten or so years older than I, was directly behind me, and she commented that she felt she ought to massage my back.

For a time I debated her meaning. It really could not have been more than it seemed: a joke meant to ease the tension of being pressed so close together. I didn't react with tremendous grace. I think I turned and cocked my head. I amused myself with the fantasy that it could have somehow been earnest, but she was with someone anyway, and no one does a thing like that anyway. The whole thing ended there with only the feeblest of grist for the mill of my mind.