My Bad

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I usually never leave the hotel room when I go out of town. The travel is by design these years because it gets me off my feet for awhile.

Heating pad or ice pack and I'm ready for the days of endless site visits when I'm in Buffalo...

...unless my buddies want to grab dinner.

Well, on this trip, dinner was out as one friend was away, but the other called me as I was watching "The Big Lebowski."

"Come on out. I gotta' grab dinner."

The place was three minutes away from my hotel room. I went.

The atmosphere in the sports bar was lively as the hockey and basketball games were on. The Yankees were off, but a photo of Reggie on the wall spurred a lot of talk about days gone by. I even ordered a beer...something I do about twice a year.

As we talked about the 1978 team a man beside me started to chime in. He was funny and well-informed, and much to my dismay, he also appeared to be visually impaired.

But no one cared...he was making us laugh.

Then he reached for his big glass of beer, and missed...

...the full glass tipped over and shattered, making a tremendous racket. When the bartender came by to clean up the glass he pointed at me and said:

"He did it."

(Told you he was funny).

"No harm," she said to me, as I decided to take the hit for him.

She refilled his beer and turned away. We laughed.

Three seconds later, he reached for the beer again.

And missed.

The beer went head over heels to the floor, and I looked over in shock at the poor man.

"That was my bad," he said.

And I Swear to God, I laughed harder than I've laughed in ten years.

He didn't get another beer.

He was supremely embarrassed, but the harder I laughed the easier it became for him.

We went back to talking about baseball, and I felt badly for him and his limited eye sight.

"That was my bad," I quoted him a little while later.

"Ah, what the hell you gonna' do, right? Life's a bitch."

So glad I went out for an hour.

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