the_gneech | Fictionlet

"Um, excuse me," Greg said to the guy behind the bar. "There's a problem."

"Hmm?" said the bartender. "What's wrong?"

"This place is a 'sports bar,' right?"

The guy blinked. "Uh ... yeah?"

"Well you've got the place littered with big-screen TVs, but they're all showing the same thing -- basketball!"

The bartender looked confused. "Basketball's a sport."

"Well, yes, it's a sport. But it's only one."

"What do you mean?"

Greg gave an exasperated sort of half-gasp, and pointed at TV after TV. "Look. Basketball. Basketball. Basketball. Basketball. Basketball, basketball, basketball! What about all the other sports out there, that are so much more interesting? Why can't you show some of them?"

The bartender shook his head like Greg had just told him his nose had fallen off. "What sport is more interesting than basketball?"

"What sport isn't more interesting than basketball?" Greg demanded. "You could show baseball! You could show archery! Team rowing! Motocross! Billiards!"

"Billiards isn't a sport."

"Billiards isn't a--??" Greg rubbed his eyes. "Okay, fine. How about inter-style martial arts competition? Or even just kickboxing? Surely that would be interesting! College wrestling! High diving!"

The bartender narrowed his eyes. "You're one of those people who actually liked to watch curling when the Olympics was on, aren't you?"

"What is that supposed to mean?" Greg demanded.

"Okay, fine," said the bartender, as if to a wayward child. "Just to please you, I'll put this TV on something else, okay?" He produced a remote and clicked in a command.

Greg looked at the TV with a flat expression. "Women's basketball," he said.

"It's a whole separate league and everything," the bartender said.

"Women's basketball is still basketball!"

"All right, all right, geeze!" The bartender clicked the remote again.

"Soccer!" said Greg. "Oh for crying out loud. Soccer is like basketball after stripping out all the interesting bits!"

The bartender produced a baseball bat. "Get outta my bar, ya freak," he said. Greg just had time to notice, as he headed for the door, that the bat had been signed by Michael Jordan.

-The Gneech

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