Adventures in Knowing - You Can't Go Home Again

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Once you learn something, you can't unlearn it. Oh sure, you can forget it, until the moment that the refresher course catches you square between the eyes with bladder-loosening force, but once you know it, you know it and there's no going back to your previous state of uninformed bliss. Yep, you're stuck with that bad boy so get used to it. Most of the time this is a good thing, sometimes it's a terrible thing, but often it's just a plain old-fashioned mixed blessing. Knowledge, dusty nomads, does not necessarily equal happiness. In fact, I know a lot of people who would argue just the opposite. How many PhDs do you know who walk around with big, goofy grins on their faces? I know exactly none.

What really drove home this bit of reluctant wisdom for me was a recent birthday. No, not mine, it was the birthday of a friend's cousin, or something to that effect. For the birthday in question, a large group of us all met at a downtown restaurant that turns into a nightclub after 9 o'clock. We met there, had a nice dinner, kicked back with some coffee and highballs to wash it all down, and then the lights dimmed, the music turned up, and the place got packed.

How many PhDs do you know who walk around with big, goofy grins on their faces? I know exactly none.

Now I'm not as good with densely crowded bars as I once was, but I don't go to nightclubs much anymore so I was easily able to just let it slide, ignoring the constant, crowded jostling for space and the two-packs a day in one night air quality. We worked our way out onto the dance floor and thrashed around to some form of Latin dance music - it's not what I'd listen to at home, but you can dance to it so what the hell, right?

We seemed, to my mind, to have things pretty good. The bar was packed full of people and in full swing, but we still had a big table to retreat to when we wanted to sit, and the music was pretty good as far as dance music goes, and we all seemed to be enjoying ourselves. This is why I was puzzled when there was suddenly a swelling wave of interest in moving to another bar.

"Why are we going to another bar?" I'm querying Reese who is already sporting a resigned look that suggests a decision has been made. He shrugs expansively.

"The girls want to go someplace else. I don't know why, they just do."

"Ah. That's too bad, because we're going to have to line up anywhere we go now, and I hate lines."

"Yeah, me too."

Knowing that we're giving up a fairly sure good time for an almost certain quantity of jerking around before we can attempt to resume having a good time, we saddle up and head out, because the currents have changed and you'll only tire yourself out and drown if you try to swim for shore when the riptide is pulling you out to sea. Halfway to the next nightclub we are surprisingly derailed by an unexpected interest in going to a strip club that we happen by.

I've never quite understood why so many women seem interested in going to strip bars when the opportunity suddenly presents itself, but I know better than to look a gift horse in the mouth, so we head inside, pleased that we have now chosen a place with no line-up and, almost certainly, a lower quotient of getting screwed around than would be found at a nightclub. Almost immediately things start to go wrong.

About half of us pay the cover charge, go inside, and order beers before we are summoned back to the entrance where an occurrence is transpiring. It seems that one of the younger people present has been asked to provide ID, and isn't carrying any. The management of our new drinking establishment is pointing out that they are legally unable to provide admission without proof of age. In countervailing response, some of the people in our little wagon train seem to have developed a negotiation strategy that involves deriding the career and life choices of the nudey-bar staff. It's having predictable results.