By Rick Kaempfer
I never thought I would be one of those guys.
You know the kind of guy I’m talking about—the kind you see when you drive around some suburban neighborhoods at night. There’s always one guy sitting on a lawn chair in his garage, wearing dark socks and sandals, smoking a cigarette and drinking a can of warm beer while watching the old family television with rabbit ears.
I knew it wouldn’t happen to me because I don’t own a pair of sandals and I only have one pair of dark socks (for weddings and funerals). I also don’t smoke cigarettes or drink warm beer—and I don’t have an old family television with rabbit ears.
Nevertheless, I’m that guy. At least, I’m the 21st century version of that guy. I don’t have a television—I have an iPod. I don’t smoke cigarettes, but I will have an occasional cigar. I don’t drink warm beer, but let’s face it, that’s only because I’m a little pickier about my beer. I have it chilled in a cooler.
My only saving grace is that I’m not sitting out there by myself. Instead, I invite a bunch of my friends over and we sit at a table and play poker. And it’s such a great time that every guy clears his schedule immediately as soon as I announce that I have an open weekend night. As it turns out, that’s only about twice a summer.
I’m not sure why I’m the only one to volunteer my garage, but it’s probably a combination of size (2 ½ car), wife (“I don’t care what you do out there”), neighbors (one empty house next door, and a hard of hearing elderly woman on the other side), and location (the guys come from east, west, north, and south).
Are we avid gamblers? No. It’s just a chance for old friends to get together, talk in the unbelievably politically incorrect way men like to talk (with lots of inappropriate profanity and sexism), have a few drinks spread out over a long period of time so nobody drives drunk, smoke some stinky cigars without anyone complaining about the smell, and listen to songs from our youth.
We had our first garage poker night of the summer a few weeks ago. At one point we went twenty minutes without playing a single hand of poker. The six of us were solving every problem in the world, from politics to baseball to our professions. We listened to the Cubs game and ripped them apart. We listened to my iPod and mocked my musical tastes. But most of all we enjoyed being our real selves. We didn’t need to edit ourselves for strangers, children, women, co-workers, or bosses. Sometimes you need to exercise your real-self-muscles so they don’t atrophy and disappear forever.
A night of garage poker is like a night of inner-truth calisthenics.
Is there a more appropriate location for that than a suburban garage? I’m sure there is, but I haven’t found it yet. I prefer to look on the bright side. At least we’re not wearing dark socks and sandals. At least we’re not drinking warm beer or smoking cigarettes. At least we’re not jiggling rabbit ear antennas to get a better picture of some old Western movie on WGN. And as soon as garage poker is over, we return to being respectable members of society.
That’s not asking for too much is it?
By the way, happy birthday America. I know you're 230 today, but you don't look a day over 225.
