Does This Drinking Buddy Make Me Look Fat?

Or just extremely shady?

So yesterday I went to happy hour with my former boss. We met at a somewhat rustic tavern north of the city, rather than some wannabe-trendy, downtown bar teeming with file-folder-clutching attorneys nursing weak, yet overpriced, cocktails.

On a scale from 1 - Dee's, which I consider the paradigm of Pittsburgh dive-bars, I give the site of last night's mini-bender an 8. (I bumped it up from a 6 on account of the degenerate at the bar wearing pajamas bedecked with playing cards.)

So I'm throwing back a few oh-so-classy Miller Light drafts with my middle-aged, married, male companion when, not one, but two dudes I went to college with strolled in. (And no, I did not go to school in and/or around the Pittsburgh area . . . so this was a truly random occurrence.) What are the chances? Apparently pretty good . . . if you're me.

These gentlemen, unfortunately, happen to have been privy to more than a few regrettable incidents involving me and gratuitous, alcohol-induced hook-ups. I'm sure they took one look at my current state of affairs and thought the worst.

Clearly I have rather lax morals and, therefore, would be the first to admit when I have done something unscrupulous. I could have explained that I was with an old colleague, not some smarmy paramour, and that nothing disreputable was afoot. But, being as I really don't give a rat's ass what the majority of the population thinks of me, I'll just leave them with their likely assumptions:

"Excessive amounts of cheap beer: check."
"Questionable choice of drinking partner: check."
"Some things never change."