Marietta!

James and I went to Alex's Saturday night to drink a beer and watch some football. It was a good time. And we made friends!

We'd been there a while when a cute blonde, about our age, comes in and watches a bit of the Ole Miss/Vanderbilt game. Whatever. She walks out.

She comes back in a few minutes later with a huge weightlifter/bouncer type. He knows some people at the bar and they all start to talk. Again, whatever. We keep watching the games.

And then after while she plops down in the booth next to me.

"Hey y'all! Do you mind if I sit down with y'all? I'm just trying to watch this game and that conversation over there is not fun. I went to Ole Miss and my daddy's at the game in Nashville right now. I'm surprised he hadn't sent me some text messages saying 'hotty toddy!' or whatever but we're losing, so he's probably mad. Do y'all want to come to a game in Oxford sometimes? My daddy's got a suite, with catered food and liquor! We've got our own booze locker and he'll call me before the game and say 'Marietta, do you need me to put something special in the booze locker?' And I'll say 'how about a fifth of Maker's Mark?' And the next day at the game there'll be a fifth of Maker's Mark in there!"

"Who are you?" I managed to work in.

"I'm Marietta! Like in Georgia. I'm a court reporter. I've got a big case starting next week and I'm so worried and it's gonna suck!"

"With the headphones and everything? Anything we'd be familiar with?"

"No, well, I don't use the headphones. I did the Winkler case, and some other ones, yeah, if it's big I probably worked it!"

I went to light a cigarette.

"Oh, now you're gonna have to give me a drag or two off that cigarette...no, no, I don't want a whole one. My boyfriend hates for me to smoke. He used to bounce at the Blue Monkey and he saw me come in there for years before we started going out and he saw me do God knows what in that place and now he doesn't like for me to smoke. Can you believe that? I'm thirty-four years old and I can't have a smoke when we're out on a Saturday night."

"Is he gonna kill me if I give you a drag?"

"Aw, no! He's a good guy. See, thing is we went to Cooper-Young today and usually I'm the one who gets all drunk and he has to get me home but today he had a big ol' margarita and nothing to eat so he got all sloppy drunk and I'm like 'ha, ha, I'm sober.' So do you guys like girls? Boys? What?"

James and I look at each other balefully.

"We both like girls," I say decisively, "but we do worry about people making that mistake when we're out together."

"Aw, hell, I don't mean nothing. Hell, I like girls and boys both. I'm 50/50! Now where are your women? Uh-huh? And you got kids? Little boys? Tell me, are they momma's boys or daddy's boys? I knew it! My sister's kids hate her. They just want to be with their daddy."

And then the boyfriend came over. He sat in the booth behind us and just sort of loomed over our whole table, like a big drunk brick wall.

"I know you from somewhere," he said, squinting at me, "you look familiar."

Actually, he did, too. Neither one of us could figure out from where, though.

"So how do y'all know Marietta?"

"She just came and sat with us."

He nodded his vast head slowly. "Yep, that sounds just like her."

And after a little while they slipped away. I can't wait to go to the game!