Thursday Surprise

I thought I was going out for a drink last night in North Beach. On my way up to the city, I hear that my drink needs to be postponed, so I throw out a text and find out that T, Xena, Tif, Za, Lean and some others are doing a "happy hour" down in the SOMA. Now when I think happy hour, I think like 5:30-7ish at some sort of dive bar. I'm appropriately dressed, so after I hit the club, I head that way thinking that if it's 7, I'll have a drink and head back home.

Only when I get there, no one is there yet. Turns out that this happy hour doesn't start til like 7:30 so I order a Roke and some french fries and enjoy my time. The bar is Orso, and it's trendy, making me feel slightly under dressed, but no matter...I've come to realize that dress in the city is mostly about how comfortable you are, not necessarily about how you look. It's only after about 10 minutes that I realize this happy hour, at this bar on a Thursday is actually a Ladies' night. I have a light bulb moment like Brodie in Chasing Amy. The rest show up and because the waitress is a significant other, we get a bunch of free shots.

I'm told I look familiar by a woman at the bar. I tell her that I feel that's highly unlikely but disappointing. One drink turns into several, and Orso turns into a trip across town to the Marina to Silver Cloud, a karaoke spot. Now, when we come in, the place is virtually empty and T goes on rampage karaoke mode to get as many song requests in as possible. And for the most part, they're excellent. Fittingly, just as the bar is getting more crowded, they step up and do a version of a song so awful that several people leave, several others go on stage to try to help them do a chorus version, and I immediately bolt for the door to go to Pizza Pino down the street.

The pizza though, it just doesn't do it. The Thursday surprise? Try having a plan for a drink canceled, replacing it last minute with a drink at a happy hour, and then turn that drink into multiple drinks + shots, a karaoke bar and a Thursday night visit down to the crepe stand for nutella/banana/coconut. There's what I was least expecting.