An okay night barhopping downtown (1 of 2): Putting on the Ritz.

So one night a few weeks ago when I was downtown I went to a number of downtown bars, to hit my weekly new bar quota.

The first one was the inside bar at the Ritz (I had already been to their patio bar this summer), and as I sat down to read, there was this older (white) couple to my right, a guy in a business suit and a woman with short dyed blonde hair and a cigarette voice who looked like nothing so much as an aging lesbian who’d seen some hard living.

“Time to go,” she said 2 seconds after I sat down, "I’ve eaten and drinken way too much” - which immediately made me recognize that she formed her past participles kind of like I do (I think I say "drunken").

Later, the (Filipino) bartender was saying the people were Panera franchise owners and 1 of the 2 owned like 16 franchises, there was a conference in town.

“Stay another twenty minutes and you can see everyone coming back from dinner.”

“Why?”, I was like, “So I can vomit?”

Then, I explained to him that I found it sickening how much people like that lived off the labor of other people, esp. people who had low-to-minimum wage jobs and were trying to raise families.

“Really,” I was like, “Do they really do all that much?  They're not the ones going in to work every day and bringing in all the money.”

He giggled nervously but gleefully.

Then, I added, “Three words," and with each word I defiantly stuck out a finger:  Tax - those - assholes.”

Then, I left.