what do you get when you cross a hedge fund trader and a longshoreman?

well, that depends on whom you ask, i guess.  but according to ronnie of carle place, long island, what you get is what i, apparently, need. 

cs lewis and i met at the beer garden for a drink after an especially painful stab therapy session.  as i’d suspected, cs lewis’d made friends by the time i arrived.  ronnie and ralphie, two mooks of the highest order (a sincere compliment in my book).  they were waiting for friends, too and had invited cs to sit with them whilst she waited for me.

i was in a foul mood.  work had been especially rough, i’d endured 6 hours, 2 cancelled flights and several delays at cleveland hopkins airport.  i’d had to meet corky st kurtz, the ‘creative’ head of my division in the president’s club and had a very awkward conversation.  you know when you know that someone just does not like you, especially for no good reason, but you have to have polite, civil, and hopefully productive conversations with them?  and then they condescend to you and tell you to remain there after they leave and have some drinks because they’re free?  did i mention that i’m pretty much the only person out of seventy plus in the division actually bringing in revenue? 

couple that with the painful therapy and the fact that i had to get up early the next morning for an mri, and i was so close to going home and burying my head in my pillow.  luckily, i kept my date with cs because these guys were hilarious. 

ralphie and ronnie were joined by mikey and val.  the former being a high school english teacher living in his parents long island basement with a prodigious early eighties porn collection and the latter being a french immigrant working in technology who thoroughly enjoyed all the racist slurs and gallic slander we could conjure up.  ronnie was married, waiting for his wife to get home from a girls night out so they could celebrate their first anniversary together.

i must tell you that a night out drinking with a quadrumvirate of ball-busting mooks is exactly what the doctor ordered.

they gave very helpful advice on men. mostly from ronnie, who told me i scare the shit out of the stronger sex and that’s why i’m single (yeah, ronnie, that’s what i tell myself).  other roundtable topics included favorite authors, the best lines from fight club, shaving/ hair preferences and personal styles, why, exactly, mikey still lived in the basement, the diamond trade and nifty blackberry tips.

i had intended on going home early so as to avoid being hungover for my MRI, but stayed out late because it was such a fun and relaxing evening. 

i also learned it’s possible to play wingman via text (good luck with frenchy, cs!).

we definitely have to hang out with those guys again.  and, yes, daphne, you’ll be there.