My First Bar Fight

This past weekend I wound up in my inaugural bar fight. Turns out there is a first time for just about everything. "In" a bar fight as in physically situated within and surrounded by a large, gale-force skirmish, rather than the "in" where one is actually the one throwing drunken haymakers. Strangely enough, however, a group of us did seem to spark the incident, albeit unknowingly.

Everything about this bar fight was ironic and cliche.

Let's start with the irony: it was ironic because Sopo is a bar situated on Southport - a yuppified avenue where the infant-to-puppy ratio is something like 1:2. Maybe even 2:2, which can be reduced to 1:1, but 2:2 sounds more impressive - almost like there is too much cuteness going on and the 2 and the other 2 will somehow leap the colon and unite to become 4, which is a pretty big number, and while it wouldn't be immediately clear what a ratio or cuteness factor of "4" would stand for... it would be kinda intimidating. Bottom line is that bar fights and cuteness are and always will be mutually exclusive, so that makes this particular fight pretty damn ironic.

OK, now for the cliches: everything about this fight was cliche because, as you probably guessed, it contained all of the basic elements found in any average, run-of-the-mill saloon scrap. Such items included:

- Misunderstanding/personal slighting

- Communication breakdown

- Escalation

- (Now) shirtless man

- Secondary bystanders who have no affiliation to primary (shirtless) character(s), but who nonetheless egg on, provoke and support the contestant(s)

- Broken glass/pool cues

- Haphazard attempt at "drawing first blood"

- Cheering/unanimous content

- Isolated, unrelated, accessory fight erupting at an indeterminate distance from the hostile nucleus

- Authorities

- Ensuing indignance

Yes this, my very first bar fight, exhibited all of the above. (Granted, two items were intentionally omitted from this list: tons of booze and loaded patrons, which should be inferred, of course. Moving on...)

There's not much to be left to the imagination, really, so I'll just throw it out there in case you haven't pieced it together yourself.

[barfight]His Excellency the Inebriate bumps into us and asks if we have a problem. We say "nay" and remind Inebriate it was he who did the bumping into. Inebriate repeats former question, but louder. Inebriate's own troops heed quarrel, strangely siding with us. Inebriate collects growing hatred for strangers, transfers to own cronies and, later, self. Polo shirt is removed and former question is repeated, but louder. Public attention has been captured, outcry commences. Inebriate's confused cohorts raise hands, try to pull a Churchill a la "Sinews of Peace (Iron Curtain)," whence Inebriate delivers initial blow. Patrons hit floor in droves. Separate fight is waged on other side of bar, glass bottles broken over table edges, pool cues over knees. Hollering and semantics plot inversely proportional lines on some graph in some underground laboratory in Russia. Bouncer arrives, bull in a china shop, with pithy aphorism a la "not on my watch," "not in my house," "not on my shift," "no way, José," "no you didn't," "nobody messes with MY NAME HERE." Additional bodies hit ground, more carnage. Screaming blonde woman in skirt is hoisted over different man's shoulders and carried out. Bartenders and general kitchen staff (hopelessly) try to deter the use of cameras, cell phones, small recording equipment. Vow to selves to search for new jobs. Amateur videos of preceding 45 seconds debut atop YouTube's "Featured Videos" section. (Way too many) authorities arrive. Remaining people asked to leave. Sopo as we know it closes, maybe for good.[/barfight]

Did I miss anything?