A dive bar date an anniversary doth not make

I decided to take the wife out for a night on the town for our anniversary this week. She often likes me to plan these sorts of things -- I believe she sees the effort I expend in the planning department as an expression of love and care. Seeing as this wasn't just any ordinary date, but an anniversary occasion, I decided to pull out the big guns.

We've been having fun with Texas two step dancing lately and through extensive research I discovered a place in Austin that was playing live music on a Tuesday night and thought I had a winner. Keep in mind the key feature of this bar was that it played dance music, I was not necessarily interested in other aspects of the establishment (my wife would later say that I did not pay attention to such aspects).

The odd thing about this bar was that it wasn't really in a commercial area. I had to do a doubletake when I was looking up directions because it's kinda in a weird residential neighborhood behind some strip malls and box stores. Nevertheless, we departed for our date.

Things seemed like they were looking up when we pulled into the pitted, dusty gravel parking lot: the yard had more plastic lawn chairs than grass and the building was kind of broken down (the front door looked like it wasn't in the frame right and there was a big handpainted piece of cardboard that said 'Danger! Use back door!") and the rusted metal roof was covered in spray paint -- but the spray paint was actually quite nice, depicting antlers and the bar's name in fancy print. These are usually signs of a good honky tonk place.

Upon entering this fine establishment, we were confronted with a lonesome man playing an electric guitar in a manner that seemed tired although I suppose he meant it to be soulful. We later determined that he was part of a musical duo the other half of which was not in attendance due to some mishaps with a raccoon or armadillo or something.

We groped our way through the very dim interior to the bar to order drinks I discovered that they had a Square terminal.

A brief aside

I've been looking for Square terminals most of the places I go this year. Unfortunately, I rarely find them. Instead, I see all these other payment processors with names that can only be described as overly cozy. Normally, I'm not the kind of person who tries to orange pill or to preach the good orange word to others. But I've been getting hyped up by all you people with your stories of spending sats and such and I think I let the excitement of being able pay for our date with sats get the better of me.

Diving in

We ordered margaritas from a woman who's exterior perfectly suited the building and went to sit down. We headed toward a very comfortable-looking corner table but ended up at a different table because upon closer inspection it seemed that someone had taken a knife (or perhaps a machete or chainsaw or something) to the upholstery of the black leather bench.

After we found a seat, a mournful dog came over and put her head in my wife's lap. I think she (my wife, not the dog) was startled by this and perhaps desired that I keep the animal from doing this. I did push it away some and she (the dog, not my wife) came and laid her head in my lap instead. The dog was incredibly reluctant to move elsewhere, despite my best efforts to shove it's head off my lap.

It was at this point that we noticed the ceiling. It was one of those false ceilings like you might see in a cheap office or something, but it had the unique appearance of being a thousand years old. pieces of some sort of dirty cloth were hanging from it in very dramatic tatters and in other places it had been completely gouged away to reveal the dark interior of the attic area.

When you looked across the bar at the stage, the ceiling gave the distinct impression of being on the verge of collapsing. The area above the musician was certainly several feet lower than where we were -- unless the man was a giant of some sort.

Then my wife began sneezing. In the course of the next ten minutes, she experienced an incredibly strong allergy attack. I kept her supplied with paper towels to blow her nose (the bar did not provide napkins) but it didn't seem to do much good.

I began to enjoy myself, sipping a margarita and listening to the blues which, if it wasn't Two Step music nor even terribly good, at least embodied the concept of the genre. Unfortunately, my wife's sneezing continued to get worse and we had to leave.

The big moment!

I approached the leathery bar woman with confidence. I had rehearsed this conversation many times in my head.

"Is that a Square terminal?" I asked, by way of introduction.

"A what?" she said.

"I see you use a Sqaure terminal. For payments." I clarified.

"Honey, we don't have none of that around here," she said.

"I'm ready to pay my tab," I said.

This inspired her to begin tapping on the Sqaure terminal I had referenced earlier.

"I heard that all those Square terminals accept bitcoin, now," I said, conversationally.

"Not this one," she said.

"No, they just announced that any Square terminal can accept bitcoin," I said. "I can show you if you like."

This seemed to raise some suspicion in her mind that I intended not to pay or perhaps to rob her fine establishment because the conversation became quite cold after this.

She told me how much I owed.

"I'm pretty sure all Square terminals can accept bitcoin," I said. For some reason at this point I showed her the lightning wallet app open on my phone.

"This one does not take any of that," she said. "Now how are you going to pay?"

During this educational conversation my wife continued to sneeze and the mournful dog continued to enjoy being very close to her -- the dog seemed quite old so perhaps it was just looking for something to learn on. But given the circumstances, I decided give up on my efforts to pay with sats and sadly had to resort to credit card.

There's always next anniversary.