7. princess bride, chapter one continued from emo

Patrick, Chunk and Allanah collected at the pub. You’d expect that the employee’s free time would be spent away from work. These as most employees were former patrons, evincing that Stereofish really was home to staff and customers alike. It had that same measure of placidity and sanctuary. It was one of those distinct classes of places, if you were the Stereofish sort you simply didn’t patron anywhere, except Stereofish.

Allanah had insisted that I ask out her friend Paula. Patrick for some reason called her Smoochy, I believe it was because she was collared making out at the bar one night with a perfect stranger.

“Why don’t you ask out Paula?”

“Quite frankly Allanah, I’m too good for her.”

I gave Allanah my best Cary Grant quizzical arched eyebrow parody. Sort of that swashbuckling expression Cary Elwes asserts throughout The Princess Bride. Patrick exploded with overwrought paroxysm.

“Keenan, you just don’t know when to quit. You think you’re cooler than everyone else, what? You think that some people are better than others?”

Chunk and everyone else really, regarded Patrick by his surname. He interminably managed to be the whipping boy for my levity and off coloured admissions, somehow conceding culpability to my imprudence.

“Why the fuck do I always get blamed for the stuff other people say or do? Keenan! All I did was laugh. You always get me in trouble!”

I was losing it.