The bad art drinking game

Yesterday Laura and I met her parents in Lake Forest to wander around the Deer Path Art League's 56th Annual Art Fair on the Square. This is one of those affairs where artists and artisans from all over set up booths in the town square to hawk their wares. To make it more fun for ourselves, Laura and I decided in advance to turn the afternoon into a drinking game.

Here's how it worked. We didn't bring any alcohol to the fair itself, but we agreed on four categories of subject matter. If we found art depicting any of these subjects, we'd have one drink for each category once we got back home. The categories were:

1. Clowns
   
2. Flamenco dancers or bullfighters
   
3. Dogs in unnatural situations
   
4. Naked boobs

As it turned out, Lake Forest was a lovely little town with a lovely little town square. The art was of a generally higher caliber than we had anticipated, and we had a good time with Laura's parents at the fair. We only managed to score in two of our categories: #3 and #4. Several times Laura asked if we could add new categories, but I'm afraid as judge I had to disallow anything we hadn't agreed upon from the start.

So, two drinks apiece that evening at home. But next year, I foresee new categories including celebrities, abstract metal wall hangings, and still lifes with wineglasses.

Happy Labor Day! Bottoms up.

"Those are HUGE!"

So, on the way home from the art fair yesterday, Laura and I stopped at our local Trader Joe's to pick up a few necessities. The store has recently been remodeled, and everything's been moved around. We couldn't find the bread aisle, so when we rounded a corner and saw a couple of young men in Trader Joe's vests chatting, we stopped and asked them for directions.

Laura's arms were folded. Suddenly one of the guys pointed toward her chest and exclaimed, "Those are huge!"

All of stared at him in confusion, including the guy's buddy. I couldn't for the life of me imagine what he was talking about.

"Your bracelets?" the guy said. "You know."

"Ohhhh!" Laura said, holding up her left arm and the two chunky plastic bracelets she wore on it. "You mean these."

"Yes. They're huge."

"Darn," said Laura matter-of-factly, "I thought you were talking about something else. I'm a little disappointed. I wore my push-up bra today and everything. I was going to say thanks for noticing."

The guy turned bright red, made a sort of choking sound, and started stammering. His buddy literally spun in a circle, ending up over at the end of the next aisle, even redder, grimacing, shaking, bent over at the waist with both hands pressed to his forehead.

"Oh, my God," said the guy, "I didn't mean, I mean it didn't even occur to me, what it—"

Ten years ago, I probably would have executed the same maneuver as the buddy. As it was, I stood by laughing and shaking my head while Laura smoothed things over with the poor party of the first part. I've come a long way since that time Laura stuck an M&M up my nose in the gift shop at the Kitt Peak Observatory.

Oh, by the way, the buddy hurried over a minute or so later to make sure we found our way to the bread aisle. Trader Joe's employees do appear to enjoy their jobs.