Hound Dog, my best friend since grade school nudged me, his cheeks beginning to turn rosy from the Jack Daniels.

"Do you see what I think you see?"

Simultaneously we both mumbled, "Prettiest girl in the bar." We meandered to the other end of the room, where her friend, the other best looking girl in the bar, offered, "There aren't any stools, but you guys can stand here."

We introduced ourselves to the girls, then I introduced Hound Dog to snakebites. After introductions, we discovered that the prettiest girl in the bar and my best friend both don't celebrate Christmas - she's Jewish, he's a dumbass. Neither of them eat meat - she's a vegetarian, again he's a dumbass.

The girls ask if we’re married. The Dog is, happily; I say I am, "but not for long." It turns out the prettiest girl in the bar is in the middle of a divorce, like me. We have a lot in common: It turns out she works for Kent State; I graduated from Kent State. She's Jewish; I love matzo balls.

While I order another Heineken for him, and a Jim Beam for me, Hound Dog points out that he "saw her first" and that this is not the first time I have stolen someone from under his nose.

The girl who later became my wife once wrote her number down on a piece of paper and handed it to Hound Dog. "Make sure your friend gets that," she told him. When he reminds me that he once spent the night at her house on New Year's Eve, before she and I were a number, I remind him that it was only because he couldn't find the door. Before the night was through, he had puked all over her floor - so I'm pretty sure it had a different connotation to her.

Feeling magnanimous, I ask if I can buy the girls a drink. Beer for the prettiest girl in the bar, Diet Pepsi for her friend. "To all the girls we've loved before," I offer as Hound Dog and I clink shots of Black Haus.

"What about Jill?" he asks. Thirteen years earlier, he had a thing for Jill. Jill, as far as I could tell, did not have the same thing for him. She did, however, seem to have some interest in me. I asked a mutual friend what he thought.

"I think as long as you don't go out with her, I don't think there will be a problem." Sometimes there's a fine line between a wise man and a dumbass. In the end, we went out a few times, then she dropped off the face of the earth. I sometimes point out to HD the heartache I saved him - a sacrifice for the team is a beautiful thing.

"To Jill," we raise shots of Jagermeister.

While the prettiest girl in the bar is in the restroom, her friend tells me, "When you first walked over, she told me 'I like the one on the right' so I guess she thinks you're cute." She then shows me how her bottom teeth are crooked and says she's not happy with that. You can't tell unless she points it out.

"And this one tonight makes three," Hound Dog mumbles and laughs.

"Then apparently you don't know about your wife." Then laughter stops.

The prettiest girl in the bar told me to call her and gave me her number. As the Mojo Kings start their second set, the girls leave. She had to stand on her tip-toes to kiss me square on the mouth, then she shook my hand. "If you decide not to call, it's ok," she says in my ear.

As Little Mike finishes a song, I shout to him, "The prettiest girl in the bar gave me her number and kissed me! How do you like that?"

Little Mike launches into "Got My Mojo Working" while I parade around the room waving her number like a show girl in a boxing ring.

More of the View from the West Hill

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