GWH and I head out one Saturday night to one of our favorite destinations for dinner...which shall remain nameless to protect the guilty. Our waitress introduces herself and I immediately forget her name. But Drunkie will work for purposes of this article. Drunkie tries to tell us the specials but gets sidetracked by GWH’s question about green chili cheese grits.

“Well, we can make them but they can only really be served with the taquitos and I can check but we’re changing the menu next week and so, yeah.”

I eye GWH and wonder if that was clear to him. Drunkie continues attempting to recite the specials and gets lost in her description of gumbo. The one thing she seems sure about is there’s duck in the gumbo. We ask about drinks and she takes a deep breath.

“Ohhhh-kay, so due to exten-u-ating cir-cum-stances, we lost our liquor license…” It sounds as if she’s memorized “extenuating circumstances” without really understanding what it means, and on top of that, she’s having trouble pronouncing the phrase. “…to be re-instated in a couple of hours, so that means you guys are the lucky ones.” She pauses for effect, or maybe just to remember again what she was saying. “You get free drinks tonight!” she finishes.

I wonder if we should applaud this lucky turn of events. She goes on to explain which well liquors are available—the well whiskey comes highly recommended by Drunkie, as it’s Jim Beam and coincidentally her favorite. We decide to think about the drinks while she flounces off to find a beer list.

GWH and I regard each other over the table. “I wasn’t aware the state was open so late.”

“Yes, isn’t that interesting they get the liquor license back so quickly? What’s the deal with the grits?”

“I have no idea. They’re changing the menu.”

Drunkie forgets to bring us the beer list, but returns after about 15 minutes and takes our order. She doesn’t write anything down, but does ask us to repeat it about six times. Lady? I respect your waitress skillz, but really…you can write it down and I won’t think any less of you. If I were waiting tables, I would write everything down. Seriously. Drunkie leaves again without taking our drink orders. That’s right. The free ones.

She returns to the table because she’s forgotten what sides we ordered. Um, double mac ‘n’ cheese? She’s the one who recommended it and called it the “best in town?” Sigh. Since we have her attention again, I say, “Drinks?”

“Oh, those will be right out.”

“But we didn’t order any yet.”

“Due to ex…ten—did I tell you about our liquor license?” Drunkie frowns with the effort of recall.

“Yes, you did. We’ll have the wine.”

We manage to get our food intact, but I’ve got GWH’s broccoli and he’s got my asparagus. We’re sharing everything anyway, and Drunkie observes this as she cruises by.

“Will you have any of his steak?” she asks me. I shake my head. “Ohhhhhh you don’t eat meat, do you….oh bless you, bless you!” she blows me a kiss and then tells us how it’s obvious that we love each other, with my passion for being vegetarian and putting up with GWH eating meat. We nod and smile. Then she asks if it’s all right if she pours the rest of my first glass of wine into the second. Then she recommends the movie I Heart Huckabees because the drunker I get, the drunker GWH gets, you know, because we’re all one. Or something. She smiles at us again and floats to another table.

“Um, did she just hiccup?” I ask GWH.

“She’s. So. Drunk.”

“Oooops, it looks like the Jim Beam is all gone!” I song-song in an imitation of Drunkie, finishing with a loud hiccup. He laughs so hard he almost spits out his wine.

We’re almost done with our meal, considering dessert, when Drunkie pulls her most impressive stunt of the night: a Spider-man-esque crawl right up the wall. She’s up there doing God-knows-what—perhaps looking for more Jim Beam?—when the owner walks through the dining room and gestures for her to get down. She hops down and goes immediately to him. He’s whispering in her ear, probably something along the lines of: “We have customers in here; stop being a jackass; holy shit are you drunk?” but she’s not paying attention.

“Can I head butt you?” she says loudly, and GWH and I nearly lose it.

It’s not until we’re on our way out (after she’s managed to put her finger in the chocolate sauce on the dessert plate) that notice she’s got a pen hanging in her hair. I wonder when she’ll discover that?

The food was fabulous, the service interesting, and the entertainment unparalleled. Yay! I hope Drunkie keeps hitting the Jim Beam as long as it means free wine for me.