{"id":52438,"date":"2018-12-12T20:30:25","date_gmt":"2018-12-13T02:30:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/?p=52438"},"modified":"2018-12-12T21:44:17","modified_gmt":"2018-12-13T03:44:17","slug":"the-view-from-the-balcony-the-sheik-saves-christmas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/the-view-from-the-balcony-the-sheik-saves-christmas\/","title":{"rendered":"The View from The Balcony: The Sheik Saves Christmas"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s clich\u00e9 to write about New Year\u2019s resolutions this time of year. So I will. I posed the question to my balcony-dwelling friends: \u201cWhat\u2019s your New Year\u2019s revolution?\u201d They laughed,having caught my twist on the time-honored tradition (except for Burt the Wheel Man who\u2019s just happy to be anywhere).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My good friend, Leon, a most inciteful man, lowered his eyes and rubbed his beardless chin in contemplation. He lookedup and said, \u201cI see what you did there, Weeks. I\u2019ll get back to you on that.\u201dThe other comrades of the Supreme Order of Balcony Dwellers and Raconteursfollowed Leon\u2019s lead and went into contemplative mode. There was an eeriesilence as my friends re-considered the trivial and searched for their inneranarchist.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            The Sheik, who commonly has uncommon\nthings to say, shot from the hip: \u201cMy New Year\u2019s revolution is to start paying\nfor my own drinks.\u201d \u201cWhat?\u201d we said. \u201cYeah,\u201d he continued, \u201cit\u2019s pretty easy\ngoing to the bar and telling one of the Knights of the Long Table, \u2018This one\u2019s\non Leon, this one\u2019s on Weeks, and so-on.\u2019 Y\u2019all didn\u2019t notice it the first time\nso I figured, why not keep it up? As long as I don\u2019t put more than one drink a\nnight on somebody\u2019s tab they won\u2019t notice.\u201d And we didn\u2019t. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

            Leon\u2019s main squeeze, No Account\nAddie, whipped out her calculator and went to work.  \u201cLet\u2019s see\u2026on the conservative side you\u2019re\nhere 3-4 nights a week. You drink about three drinks a night. Allowing for\nvacations and other variables, that\u2019s about 45 weeks, times four is 180 nights,\ntimes three is 540 drinks. At happy hour prices that amounts to 2700 pre-tax\ndollars!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

            The Sheik chuckled. We didn\u2019t. His\nlaughter soon faded into a disconcerting silence. His chin dropped to his chest\nin pseudo-shame as he melted into his chair. Then he pulled out the oldest\ntrick in the book: he started crying. The sorry SOB started crying! No one knew\nwhat to say \u2013 or either they did and just kept their mouth shut.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            One by one the Balcony Dwellers –\nBurt the Wheel Man; ZZ Bullfrog, a pythy man; Spicy; the Angler; Queenie; King\nCobra; even the Sheik\u2019s main squeeze, Cotton, – silently deserted The Balcony,\nshaking their heads in disappointment as they went inside. In a matter of\nseconds only the Sheik and I remained. I reloaded my pipe. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

            The Sheik stopped whimpering and,\nwith his head still bowed, gave me a sideways glance and a s**t-eatin\u2019 grin.\n\u201cY\u2019all really believed me, didn\u2019t you? Took the bait hook, line, and sinker.\nGet everybody back out here.\u201d I took a long draw from my pipe, a sizeable swig of\nAbsolute Ruby Red, and stared at him. \u201cThis better be good,\u201d I said as I went in\nto gather the crew.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            They reluctantly came out \u2013 still\nroyally pissed off \u2013 and just stood there in a semi-circle, looking like grand\ninquisitors, the Sheik, the grand inquisitee. He reached in his coat pocket and\nproduced a stack of envelopes, each with a different Balcony Dweller\u2019s name on\nit. He passed them out and told us to open them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            Inside the envelopes were receipts\nfor donations to the Salvation Army, United Way, Food Pantry, Humane Society,\nand other local charities. \u201cI started this out as a joke,\u201d said the Sheik. \u201cI\nput a drink on Leon\u2019s tab at the first of the year. He never noticed. I thought\nit would be funny to pull that stunt on the rest of you. Then I started feeling\nguilty and decided I\u2019d turn the trick into a treat.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            He continued, \u201cThat $2700.00 you\ncalculated \u2013 that was pretty close to what I got from you. I kicked in a little\nof my own and gave $3000.00 to these local charities in your names. Merry Christmas,\nchumps!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            With that the Sheik slapped his\nthighs, laughed in delight, popped up out of the chair, grabbed Cotton, and\nskedaddled on outta there. We all watched \u2013 slack-jawed \u2013 as they headed north\ntowards St. Leo\u2019s. The Sheik donned a Santa Claus hat, then turned to look at\nus. He waved, and, as they walked out of sight he yelled, \u201cHappy Christmas to\nall, and to all a good night! Freakin\u2019 ho-ho-ho y\u2019all!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            \u2026and that\u2019s the view from The\nBalcony. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s clich\u00e9 to write about New Year\u2019s resolutions this time of year. So I will. I posed the<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":262,"featured_media":39753,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[11902],"tags":[31,11259,13678,10286,13679,13250,10878],"class_list":["post-52438","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-randy-weeks","tag-city-grocery","tag-grinch","tag-merry-christmas","tag-randy-weeks","tag-the-sheik","tag-the-view","tag-the-view-from-the-balcony"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/2017-5-11-View-from-the-Balcony.jpg?fit=600%2C400&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52438","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/262"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=52438"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52438\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/39753"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=52438"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=52438"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=52438"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}