Good Times, Bad Times, I Know I've Had My Share

Sweet Spot:  Any place which is optimum for a certain action to take place.

I was at the main square yesterday enjoying a delicious cup of Starbucks specialty coffee.  It was overpriced but delicious.  There were a couple of young men sitting in the outdoor patio area with several bags of cookies and candy in front of them, but no specialty coffees.  I don't think they were patrons of Starbucks but they appeared to be heroin addicts on the nod.

One of the guys was semi-alert and he appeared to be semi-enjoying himself.  He appeared to be in that sweet spot between needing a buzz and too much buzz.  I liked that spot.  I pursued that spot right up to the gates of insanity and death, a popular spot for alcoholics and drug addicts bent on their own self-destruction.  It's like a park for us.  Most people would not go to a park named Gate of Insanity and Death but we flock to it like they're giving away free Black Sabbath T-shirts.  Unfortunately, that spot got shorter and shorter, eventually vanishing completely, leaving me in a world of hurt.  It was a bad feeling when I could no longer locate that spot.  We call that the Jumping Off Point, also a bad name for a park.

The other guy was roaring toward the too much buzz section of the spot.  He appeared to be barely conscious.  It was mesmerizing to watch.  He would take a brightly colored Teddy Graham, inspect it closely, thoughtfully, then pop it in his mouth and begin methodically chewing.  As he chewed carefully and methodically his head would begin to drop forward, slowly, slowly, until it reached an almost impossible angle, and it would hang there for a moment before something more advanced than the reptilian portion of his brain would engage and he'd snap upright.

Mr. Semi-alert was chewing brightly colored sticks of gum or maybe Gummy Bears.  From time to he'd remove a piece of wet stuff from his mouth, roll it into a small ball,  and stick it on his friend's face.  Mr. Nodding-off had several pieces of bright green, blue, and red wads of food stuck to his cheeks and forehead.  He looked like he was suffering from fluorescent smallpox.  He didn't seem to notice or he didn't care.  Mr. Semi-alert found this hilarious.

Good friends, good times.