A writer with OCD walks into a bar again. First, the little shuffle step to make sure the right foot enters first, and second, a bee line to the bathroom to wash the hand that touched the door all the while ignoring the girl at the counter. Luckily the sinks are automatic and he does not have to touch any faucet handle, and the bar has those new fangled hand dryers that you just stick your hands into instead of having to hit that big old button with your elbow. But not so lucky, he realizes, due to the new fangled hand dryers there are no more paper towel dispensers from which he can grab a paper towel so he can open the bathroom door without touching the knob. And so, a quandry. Does he pull down his sleeve over his hand to open the door? Or does he wait for someone else to enter and quickly glide/slide through the open portal which leads to his main objective? The answer is simple. The sleeve method was already used upon entering the bar and at that moment he made a mental note that laundry has now been pushed forward one day and that has now ruined his entire life's schedule. Thus, hoping to avoid doing laundry twice on the wrong day, he opts for the obvious. He shall wait. He shall wait with hands in the pockets of jeans which may or may not be dirty or clean but they are his jeans and he knows the condition of such material for they are his and he is not bothered at all. It would be an entirely different story if said jeans were not his, but such a situation would never occur as he would never have his hands in the pockets of someone else's jeans. Only maybe or possibly on a second date, but that is also an entirely different story.
And so the endless waiting ( at least 2 minutes ) pays off as someone without any sort of worrisome condition or thought of potential bathroom related sickness wanders in and he slips/slides/glides/runs through the opening into the dim and quite depressing void which is a bar. He sits in his regular seat. A seat chosen for the proximity of the beer taps and hopefully and usually a seat far away from anyone else. Same bartender, same drink. Beer. He once again wonders if this bar has any female bartenders, but he once again realizes it is early and the female bartenders probably work later in the late evening/early morning. That's what happens when you don't sleep for 2 days and when you do you're still up at 5 a. m. so opening time at a bar is like 7 p. m. for everyone else.
Notebook out and pen in hand ( the black felt tip pen if you recall but you don't because no one reads this tripe ) he strategically places them in a certain geometrically, astronomically, and most aesthetically pleasing way, and begins to write. Nothing. He begins to write absolutely nothing at all. But this does not displease him, not at the least. This is the routine. Nothingness is routine. Maybe the cap is taken off the pen and maybe he asks the not female bartender for a napkin to scribble on. But there really is nothing. Nada.
So, tab paid, it is time to finish the routine. Yet one quandry still remains. How to leave? To leave means to touch the door in one way or another and that means having to wash hands again and that means the bathroom and the new fangled hand dryers and the hands in pockets of jeans and the waiting for another door to open. The circle of life, he does suppose.
And somewhere a snake is eating it's own tail.
Ouroboros.
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