Thursday, July 12, 2012

TS Eliot waxes poetic over the T.G.I. Friday’s Happy Hour


  
             Recently I paid a more than pleasant visit to a local dining establishment happily named T.G.I. Friday’s. Basking in the afterglow of this enchanted experience, I do say henceforth there will be no more lying etherized on a table for this patient. Yes, I declare, T.G.I. Friday’s is truly a pleasure palace, a glass-clinking treat nonpareil, an anodyne for the wintering soul. Of Watermelon Mojitos and Pink Punk Cosmos I sing; such lush, harmonious Aeolian tunes were never sweeter. The lyre of Orpheus may have once charmed in similar fashion all who fell within its range, but I doubt any euphoria lifted spirits more than would a taste of the Warm Pretzels With Craft Beer-Cheese Dipping Sauce combination.    
            O’ mighty gods on high, I do believe I have found my objective correlative in the Jackberry Smash, and the Buffalo Wings sing such a prelude as to most certainly bestow upon one the right to smile. Do I dare to eat a chip from the Loaded Skillet Chip Nachos? And soon the question of a Pick-Three-For-All is dropped upon my plate. I must confess to indecision’s stall, though Chicken Fingers make it worth my while after all, and soon-- praised be these red-and-white-striped sapient sutlers of the Lord-- I am a stuffed man.   
            At the bar the investment bankers come and go, calling each other Bro.
            Brazen, the servers here, who cut quite a swath through the mêlée of tables, marking their territory with grandiose smiles and a cheery ebullience that perforce empties one of all worry over bottom-of-the-trouser rolling. Old age has no dominion here. The thrilling coruscation of the hurry-up-please-it’s-time décor paves the roads of melancholy with a snazzy gilt charm; with constant fluttering stimulations of the senses galore; with the grace of an eagle soaring in the summit of heaven. I take the air, I tell you with assurance, to better dimensions than any tobacco trance. The delightfully brash music tinkles and thrums from some mysterious place above as I sit for more than a few much-more-than-happy hours; and all the while the resilient yet fancy-free bartenders put on inimitable siteswap juggling displays with the liquor bottles. I even witnessed one of these daring young men ignite a shot glass into flames before an adventurous patron breathed out the fire and poured the magic elixir down his gullet. But I digress, dizzy from the enchanting aroma of Grilled Chicken Fusion Skewers. For indeed, I presume, there will be time to sample Strawberry Fields Salads and Jack Daniels Chicken & Shrimp; to dare to disturb the universe with the savory zest of the Kansas City BBQ Burger; to measure out my life in Diddy Ups, Horny Ritas, and Berri Açaí Sours.
            Let us go then, you and I, when the Happy-Hour lights blaze against the stained-glass sky; let us go, through certain red-white stripes, the splashy murals of hot-spot locales, Americana tchotchkes, and the appetite-whetting scent of Chedder & Bacon Potato Skins; let us go to a place where it’s always Friday…Oh, do not ask, “Ambitious? Energetic? Engaging?” Let us go and make our visit.