Maid's Birthday Bar

[chris2c4u]

It could be a place anwhere. Neon buzzing, dark outside, darker in. You know em? Come on in.

It's a quarter to three...no one's in the place, 'cept you and me...set 'em up Joe. And one for the birthday girl, if she saunters on by.

Peers closely at my drink and thinks about castles.

Don't worry Joe, she'll know what's what.

 

[Maid of Marvels]

Of all the bars in all the world...

Play it once, Professor. For old times' sake. Play it. Play "As Time Goes By".

And give me a double while you're at it. Okay, maybe a triple. Can I have seconds and thirds?

 

[chris2c4u]

Happy Birthday, Maidlington. A little late. Blame it on the goldfish in me.

Sure, repeats are good. How'd you like the stools? Real naughahyde.

 

[Maid of Marvels]

*eyes the shiny red seat covering

Did you catch it on safari?

(and you're not late - it's still 3 April in some parts of the world)

But where's the cake???

 

[chris2c4u]

Looks shifty. Cake. Erm...What cake?

Sweeps crumbs under the carpet.

Mice?

 

[Maid of Marvels]

*peers

Maybe gerbils - but I was certain they'd have left me a piece. Have you turned them to the dark side?

*sighs and puts on sunglasses, whispering into the leaves of a large potted palm: The herons are blooming in Capistrano.

 

[chris2c4u]

Opens a newsaper and mutters darkly.

The tractors are running well on cactus juice. Nods sagely.

Swats at a moving lump under my waistcoat. Not now Marco. Now is not the time.

 

[Maid of Marvels]

Da, Boris. It is gude.

Now what about that drink?

 

[chris2c4u]

Birthday spcial, coming right up. Give the lady anything she wants, Joe.

Erm...Joe?

Maid, where you takin' him?

 

[Maid of Marvels]

I used him up and spit him out... I'm back

Café Comedy
by Robert William Service

She

I'm waiting for the man I hope to wed.
I've never seen him - that's the funny part.
I promised I would wear a rose of red,
Pinned on my coat above my fluttered heart,
So that he'd know me - a precaution wise,
Because I wrote him I was twenty-three,
And Oh such heaps and heaps of silly lies. . .
So when we meet what will he think of me?

It's funny, but it has its sorry side;
I put an advert. in the evening Press:
"A lonely maiden fain would be a bride."
Oh it was shameless of me, I confess.
But I am thirty-nine and in despair,
Wanting a home and children ere too late,
And I forget I'm no more young and fair -
I'll hide my rose and run...No, no, I'll wait.

An hour has passed and I am waiting still.
I ought to feel relieved, but I'm so sad.
I would have liked to see him, just to thrill,
And sigh and say: "There goes my lovely lad!
My one romance!" Ah, Life's malign mishap!
"Garcon, a cafè creme." I'll stay till nine. . .
The cafè's empty, just an oldish chap
Who's sitting at the table next to mine. . .

He

I'm waiting for the girl I mean to wed.
She was to come at eight and now it's nine.
She'd pin upon her coat a rose of red,
And I would wear a marguerite in mine.
No sign of her I see...It's true my eyes
Need stronger glasses than the ones I wear,
But Oh I feel my heart would recognize
Her face without the rose - she is so fair.

Ah! what deceivers are we aging men!
What vanity keeps youthful hope aglow!
Poor girl! I sent a photo taken when
I was a student, twenty years ago.
(Hers is so Springlike, Oh so blossom sweet!)
How she will shudder when she sees me now!
I think I'd better hide that marguerite -
How can I age and ugliness avow?

She does not come. It's after nine o'clock.
What fools we fogeys are! I'll try to laugh;
(Garcon, you might bring me another bock)
Falling in love, just from a photograph.
Well, that's the end. I'll go home and forget,
Then realizing I am over ripe
I'll throw away this silly cigarette
And philosophically light my pipe.

* * * * *

The waiter brought the coffee and the beer,
And there they sat, so woe-begone a pair,
And seemed to think: "Why do we linger here?"
When suddenly they turned, to start and stare.
She spied a marguerite, he glimpsed a rose;
Their eyes were joined and in a flash they knew. . .
The sleepy waiter saw, when time to close,
The sweet romance of those deceiving two,
Whose lips were joined, their hearts, their future too.

 

[chris2c4u]

We're here again...happy Birthday your Maidliness

 

[Maid of Marvels]

*surreptitiously pasting petals onto my long-wilted rose

Fancy meeting you here. *waggles eyebrows

Will there be drinks and cake, too?

 

[chris2c4u]

Drinkable cake?

 

[Maid of Marvels]

That sounds icky (says the woman in the attic). No bats in my belfry.

 

[chris2c4u]

Why are you hanging upside down exposing your unmentionables?

 

[chris2c4u]

Happy birthday,oh vanishing one. I'm off to drink a Manhattan soon.