“Meaning, does this drink cost $5.02,” I ask, and add, with what I hope is a whimsical, ha-ha smile, “or $502?” “Just out of curiosity, is that cocktail missing a decimal point?” I ask the server. Among them, there’s one with a price that makes my eyes pop, cartoon-style. I can still enjoy weekday afternoon drinks-vicariously. ![]() These days, at the so-called cocktail hour, I’m often at the playground, informing a parent that his toddler is eating sand, or explaining Darwinian principles to my son, who doesn’t understand that standing at the bottom of the slide unwittingly promotes natural selection. The server plunks down a cocktail menu, not realizing that for me, “happy hour” now signifies a prehistoric ritual. ![]() Later that afternoon, I’m sipping a post-meeting coffee at a hip downtown Minneapolis restaurant. Trying to save face, I say, “Maybe they’re just being nice. “It’s just that, you know, most younger people don’t want their coins.” He shakes his head with a beatific smile. The dark circles under my eyes are testimony to my preschool-aged son’s recent enthusiasm for singing “Frère Jacques” at 3 a.m.-not unlike having a rowdy college roommate with a penchant for nocturnal drinking songs. “Are you calling me old?” I ask, in what I hope is a youthfully lighthearted tone. I’m caught between the last flowering gasp of youth and the deafening freight train of middle age, pounding down the track. Not unlike, perhaps, surveying a Roman temple before the fall of the ancient empire. “Do most people not wait for their change?” I’m half-joking. ![]() “Oh, sorry.” He hits a button on the register. “Oh, just my change.” It’s about twenty cents. He’s young, with dreadlocks and a winsome smile, caught between the unselfconsciousness of childhood and the fierce invincibility of hitting your twenties.Īfter a few seconds, his eyes flick up with a perplexed half-smile. Do you ever wonder if you’re still in the late summer of your life, or if the leaves are turning and you’re headed straight into foliage season?Īt a gas station on Hennepin Avenue, I hand the cashier a $20 bill and wait for my change.
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