Mid-Day at Jackie's Place, 14,143 Words

 I finished the Day in the Life of Jackie's Place chapter! It probably could have gone on for a while, but I didn't want to get too into the weeds, it really was meant to be a typical day at Jackie's Place, which, as you all know is rarely typical.

Usually, mid-day, some unexpected group of oddballs arrive at Jackie's Place, so I figured why not a group of attractive footballers??

A group of people walk through the door and everyone turns to take in the new arrivals. 5 overwhelmingly attractive men enter the room, blinking as their eyes adjust to the dim light. They wear matching black football shirts that read “Los Jugadores Infernio.” Aside from that, they have the look of a group that has emerged from a random pants generator. One wears a Speedo, another chaps, a third wears military-style parachute pants. The other two are more suitably dressed in jorts and matching soccer shorts, respectively. The men’s outfits would have made them stand out anywhere, but in the grimy interior of Jackie’s Place, they look perfectly in place.

The regulars quickly resume the joyless consumption of their flat beer and stale pretzels, their eyes distant as they dream of better days. The newcomers are hardly newsworthy. It seems every day a group of misfits enter Jackie’s Place. Today, it is outrageously attractive footballers. Yesterday, it was a group of economists attending a nearby economics convention- a fact that they advertised with their matching ‘economists don’t know what they’re doing, EcoCon2021’ t-shirts. These shirts seemed to be a failed attempt at a sexy double entendre- an unsuccessful attempt to emulate much loved classics like ‘chemists do it on the table’ or ‘bureaucrats do it slowly” shirts. The day before that, it was a morose group of New Jersey Devils fans, who had come to drown their sorrows for no reason in particular other than the fact that they were New Jersey Devils fans. Last week a group of suspiciously dressed Jane Austen buffs had arrived, requesting a screening of the 1983 version of Mansfield Park. The group had gone to great lengths to give the appearance of being tourists. They were ridiculously attired in Tilly hats, I heart NY t-shirts, knee high socks, and if that weren’t bad enough, a couple of them had cameras slung around their necks. They were obviously locals in disguise.

Let’s see how the footballers fare, shall we?

“Can you put on the football game?” asks the one in chaps. Jackie’s scowl deepens. These footballers have unknowingly stepped on a nerve. Jackie will regularly pontificate to anyone who will listen (truthfully, everyone is forced to listen) that he refuses to get a subscription to DaZone, the European football streaming service and the holder of exclusive broadcast rights to virtually all soccer games. This point, while well made, is seemingly irrelevant since there isn’t even a television in Jackie’s Place. Never has been, never will be (another favourite line of Jackie’s).

No television, no clocks, no calendars. If this strikes anyone as odd, they keep it to themselves. 

I wish I could include the beer pong game, the beer throwing competition (which ends badly when a woman in a leather jacket smartly paired with a wedding dress is drenched in beer), but you all know how things get at Jackie's Place. Tomorrow we will return to the world of Gordon, James, Josh, and Maeve. Looking forward to a change of pace and hopefully moving the plot forward!