Wretched Weather

The storm broke with a surprising violence, flooding the streets in just minutes. Thunder rumbled and lightning cracked across the sky in jagged streaks while patrons on the patio, wine glasses in hand, fled for the shelter of the restaurant and caused a massive traffic snarl at the hostess stand. Servers bobbed and weaved trying to salvage dinner plates and drinks and temporary tables were set up in the Bottle Shop to accomodate the evicted and unexpected guests. Good humor mixed with resignation and umbrellas.

Among the displaced was a couple who had just left the Bottle Shop, a couple made rude and wretched by an over abundance of alcohol. They had been loud and ungracious, yelling questions across the width of the store, tripping over wine displays and generally behaving as drunks often do - they were demanding, obnoxious and petulant, taking without asking from cheese trays being prepared for other diners, interrupting conversations, stumbling into each other, badgering the servers for attention. Also as many drunks do, they appeared to think their behavior was amusing and entertaining to themselves and others though their language was suggestive and coarse and their laughter reeked with alcohol induced humor. Being paid employees, we worked around them as best we could - the guests were a good deal less tolerant, shunning them with glaring, disdainful looks and complaining about their low class manners, hoping they would choose somewhere else for dinner.

Public intoxication is neither a pretty sight nor a funny one. The woman, thin and well dressed and clearly once a beauty, was now fading with deep creases in her face and papery skin that makeup could not hide. The man, pudgy in his khaki pants and polo shirt, wore his white hair in a spiky crewcut, an array of gold chains around his thick neck and a diamond drop earring from one ear. They waved wine bottles around like flags, pretending to do battle with each other and then collapsing with convulsive laughter. Inevitably, a bottle of French wine collided with a wine rack, broke, and sent a shower of wine and glass in all directions - Oh, look! the woman shrieked, I christened a ship! The man's face abruptly changed at that, his sense of humor not extending to his wine stained khakis or the cost of the bottle.

The storm raged for a short while then dissipated, flooded streets returned to normal although the air stayed heavy and wet and the ground was saturated. Like the unpredictable spring weather, alcohol raises its head, does its damage and then retreats until the next storm.