Last night’s forecast called for isolated showers

Who knew it meant *inside* Charlie G’s?

As usual, the Tuesday night gang headed out, over and up to meet at Charlie G’s for a bit of Trivia.  Not only were we ready to out-smart the competition: we were ready to out-snack them!  With $110 in bar cash burning holes in our collective pocket, we had Trivia and beers and wings on our minds.  Until the heavens opened up and showered down upon us, that is.  Or, er, perhaps that was a hot water main.

Yup!  The pipe right above the main entrance suddenly exploded and a waterfall came spewing out.   At the time, I was upstairs with Laura and Larry and we all just sort of looked at it like: “huh. cool,” before realizing exactly what was going on.  Barb and Allen came bounding up the stairs next (having just arrived) and though we were guessing where the water was coming from (air conditioning unit?), Allen very smartly pointed out the hot steam and how the loft area we were in was now increasing by about 10 degrees per second.  Ah, hot water main! You’d think Trivia folks would have figured that out sooner.    Thank God we were upstairs when it happened and the pipe over the lower area, not ours.  Folks down below got drenched before they had a chance to escape their seats.  Poor neglected pitchers of beer got diluted quite quickly.  (I heard the waitress telling that patron later, “I really don’t want to charge you for that pitcher….”  Yeah, no kidding, lady)  We all just stood around thinking: well, isn’t this an interesting turn of events?

The water was coming down in such force it was literally power washing the floor.  And, oh my dear Lord, did it need it!  Yards and yards of black soot came splashing off the floor; and seriously? I didn’t realize the floor was that dirty!  It never *looked* that dirty — typical “bar” and all, but man.   It was like brand new tile.   Of course, this also meant a nice steady stream river lake of dirty black water was forming and inching toward the back of the room.  It was time to high tail it out of there.   

The folks who showed (someone help me out here: who was the girl who showed right when we were leaving?) gathered out on the street a bit to figure out what might happen next.  I’m rather proud of us for also paying out tabs before running; not that it was much — but still.  The bar could have easily comped us all, too.  Folks were actually standing in the ever-rising river of black muck waiting for their credit cards to ring through rather than leave without paying, which, honestly? I think would have been legitimate in this case.  I just finally put cash in front of the waitress and stepped out the door.  Laura was soon to follow.

I had been a bit tired before heading out: company and trivia would have perked me up, but with this snaffu, I decided instead just to head home.  I missed Amy’s arrival (I have no idea what “5 minutes” is in her world, but she had texted me 30 minutes prior that that’s how long it would take for her to get there) and not sure who else showed up or if the party was moved to another locale.  Hopefully Laura can help fill in those details over in her little world.

So, eh, no Trivia last night.  Bummer.  But kinda interesting nonetheless!