Another Fine Sunday

Sundays have begun to get fairly busy at the Wrong Way. Still, I suspect many people don’t realize we have begun being open seven days a week. As usual, at 10:30 p.m., I attempted to venture out to further my ongoing Ubon Nightlife Research Project, but the Big Boss made it clear that I was expected to stay in the pub on Sundays until closing, irregardless of where the funding for the Research Project originates. Our customers were cooperative; a great many stayed until 2:30 a.m., mainly because I refused to turn off the music and ask them to leave. The Big Boss wanted to turn out the lights and spray them with cold water, but I pointed out the possible ramifications of such an act. Next Sunday the Big Boss will probably suggest I go out on my Research Project so she can close the pub at a more reasonable 1:00 a.m.

The Viking has finally gotten in sync with the bread baking schedule. It took weeks for him to understand that I’ve begun making bread one day and baking it the next. It’s about a 30 hour process. He’s on a healthy, self-enforced, retirement schedule of one night getting completely smashed at our pub followed by one day at home in utter misery while recovering from the foggy exploits of the night before, not sure which fragments of memory were real and which imagined. He would come in on a Tuesday evening and ask me if I baked bread. No, I made bread, I’d inform him. Can I buy a loaf, he would ask. No, because it won’t even be in the shape of loaves until tomorrow when I bake bread. You can have one of the loaves I baked yesterday, I’d offer. But you BAKED bread on TUESDAY last week, he’d stress, on the verge of tears, voice cracking. He’s particularly fond of freshly baked bread, which he hadn’t had in weeks. I would then explain for a tenth time about the unreasonable calendar system we have with the odd number of days in a week, for which I could not be blamed. I suspect that comprehension was not the cause for his getting in sync with the bread baking schedule. It is more likely that he simply got so smashed on Thursday night last week that it took him two full days to recover. His wife came in on Saturday and bought a day-old loaf of bread for him. I can’t remember if he managed to take his freshly baked loaf home with him last night because we were all so smashed.