Face on the floor.

Damn it, tubey! Get your roots off my neck! This bloody floor is covered with glass shards and god knows what else. Let me up, will you?

Good goddamn thing for PDAs, otherwise there'd be no way in hell I could post this week. Freaking hell, were under siege here in The Straw Horse, a local public house we stumbled into last week. Oh, sure.... I know what you're going to say. "Joe," you'll tell me, "aren't you guys just a little old for barroom brawls?" And the answer to that is, of course, yes. But before you ask a follow-up, let me just explain that this brawl was a.) not my idea, b.) the result of circumstances entirely beyond my control, and c.) started by Marvin (my personal robot assistant) in an uncharacteristic fit of passion. Whoa, hold on... can't type... here comes another bottle...

Fuck, that was close. Sorry for the interruption. Where was I? Ah, yes. Marvin. Of course, as you remember (just scroll down to last week's column), was encouraged (by myself and others) to pull on a ludicrous scarecrow get-up in hopes that that would keep us from being ejected from yet another tavern, most of which up here still refuse to serve robots. (Yes, I'm ashamed to say that this is true. There's a kind of lucite ceiling here in upstate New York... people don't like to admit it, but there you are.) Well, the cheap disguise worked, after a fashion, and we did manage to purchase a round of libations before the trouble began. (Not sure you want the kids to hear the rest of this... I'll just pause a minute while you put them to bed. Good night, Mary! Sleep tight, Chucky!)

Now, it seems as though the proprietor of the establishment took a certain amount of pride in the autumnal display he maintains (seemingly year 'round) out in his front yard. And it appears that, in preparing the decorative scarecrow, he employed some of his own discarded clothing to add a certain verisimilitude. As he set up the drinks we ordered (including a white Russian for Marvin), he took notice of the distinctive laundry mark on Marvin's collar... a mark that he himself had made. Marvin, convinced the clothing was his own, made no effort to conceal the mark. And... well, you can probably guess the next thing that was said. (Clue: it starts with "HEY, Wait a minute....!!") As a matter of fact, you can probably imagine the entire body of dialogue, as well as the obscene gestures, grunts, and various violent acts that ensued after this unfortunate discovery. (Fact is, I've been introduced to some words I've never heard before... and if I survive this encounter, I will surely use them.)

So, crikey, here I am on the barroom floor, scrambling for purchase, dodging broken glass, and praying for deliverance. (And I don't mean the movie, Chucky. So just go back to bed, now - there's a good little chap.)