In a Chicago suburb, late afternoon was sliding into early evening. This cozy village had been around for 150 years and stately old elms lined its streets. The British, Dutch and French colonial homes, all circa 1920, sat in stately comfort alongside each other.
It was late November and rain was speckling our windows. The icy wind, fresh from nearby Lake Michigan, swirled and twirled around those elms, stripping them of their final batch of foliage.
The lawn and sidewalk already had layers of large, wet leaves. They were so layered, I couldn’t walk to the mailbox without several of these wet hijackers sticking to my Sperry Top-Siders.
Fortunately, we had places to go and things to do that unpleasant Saturday night. Neighbors were having a dinner party and six couples were invited. It was to be a fairly fancy shindig and required a bit of closet choreography in order to get an outfit put together.
Arriving wet and chilly just three houses down, we slipped off our dripping wet outerwear and began to mix ‘n mingle. The neighbor I saw a couple hours ago up on a ladder, putting up holiday lights, was now complete GQ cover material in his Brooks Brothers turtleneck, velour jacket, Scottish plaid pants and jodhpur boots.
Following the ding of a proper little bell, we were asked to move into the dining room.
I must say that the candles reflecting off the hand-cut Waterford glasses, the flower arrangements, Wedgwood china and abundance of wine decanters told me this was not Denny’s. There would be no “Moon Over My Hammy” served here.
As the evening moved along and those wine decanters emptied and refilled, all was going well until my wife, seated two people to the left, asked them to pass her empty glass to me for a refill. There was a decanter directly in front of me. I filled the glass, turned to the guy on my left and paused. This guy apparently had completely forgotten that just moments ago, he’d passed me the glass. He and the woman next to him were involved in a vigorous discussion and I didn’t want to interrupt.
When their conversation continued and I was sitting there with a glass of wine going nowhere and my warm meal going south, I had an idea. Waiting for them to grab a breath, I wanted to say, “This is Shirley’s empty wine glass which you just passed me and apparently forgot about. I just filled it. Would you kindly pass it back to Shirley? Thank you.”
Instead, I condensed it, turned toward him with the glass held upright and said, “To Shirley.”
Still not fully understanding the situation, he paused. Then lifted his glass and tinged it with his fork.“Of course,” he said. “Attention, everyone. To Shirley!”
With that, the entire table lifted their glasses to toast Shirley. But of course, Shirley didn’t have a glass.
Y’know what? Sometimes it’s just easier to eat at Denny’s.
Jim was a creative director at two prominent U.S. ad agencies where he created TV commercials for a variety of well-known consumer products. Today, he’s become adept at channel-switching whenever a drug commercial appears along with its disclaimer, disclosing the drug’s dreadful side effects.
