9:30pm. Thursday. Starving. Waiting for my chicken to cook on my itsy propane grill. Occupying my time with a $3 merlot from Jaycee's and listening to 88.3. Go out in the backyard with a plate in my right hand and a fork in my left. SH@T! Ran out of propane. Starving. Do I risk salmonella? Idea! I throw my dog a bone and head to the turf club. I ordered a MM on the rocks and a sirloin. It takes 3 MMs before my steak is medium-rare. I have yet to talk to anyone besides the bartender. After devouring my steak and my 6th MM, I begin chatting up the person next to me. Soon, I go outside to bum a cigarette. Chattin, drinkin, smokin, repeat, repeat, repeat. I switch to Stella, because I gotta go to work tomorrow. I don't make it to work. I wake up with my front door open and lying in my bed with my dog and my clothes on feeling good... a little too good. Manic. Woo-hoo. I take a couple of bong hits and me and the dog head out to a beautiful day. It is hard to be hungover walking around in the afternoon in Golden Hill (well, as long as you move slowly). Cool. The tables in front of the diner are empty, so I can eat and hang with the dog. When I sit down, I can see someone etched 4 1-cent symbols on the window. I see these all over Golden Hill. A homeless with an amputated leg slowly hobbles past me. I amusingly wonder if that is the famous Mr. Redmond Barry. A waitress in her 60's comes out and tells me in a thick german accent that I look just like her first husband. She tells me this every time I have seen her for the last 4 years.

I order french toast, sausage, and 2 runny eggs. A curvaceous curly blonde sits down on the other outside table. She asks me if I mind if she smokes. Is she hitting on me? I mumble no problem. The smoke makes me nausea. I try to think of something clever to say to start banter. I never say anything. I tie up the dog to the closest tree, and go inside to pay the check. While I am waiting at the cashier register for a waitress, I overhear 2 separate tables arguing over Mccain and Obama. Both have good arguments, i.e. they both suck. The intensity of their voices increases, and I start freaking out a little. Patrons of both tables are now both on their feet in each other's face. They are only two feet from me. I am really freaking. From nowhere, a 4 foot brown boy with a beatles haircut appears between me and the soon-to-be riot. Facing the crowd, he shouts STOP. The diner is silent. He continues, my mom and dad died in iraq, his voice is shaking, so you all would have a choice to vote, so be happy and get along. There was not a dry eye in the diner except two. Mine. I was having a different reaction. The MMs, runny eggs and cigarettes were creeping their way into my mouth during little uncle sam's speech. By the time he finished, my cheeks were filled like a happy chipmunk. When everyone in the diner started clapping, the french toast reached my fully occupied mouth. This began a chain reaction; all of which ended on top of the beatles haircut.