Yes, this was an actual question that was posed to me over the weekend.  I wasn’t in a park or around people who were flying kites, I was in a bar!

Why was I asked this question?  I have no idea!

Kites are FUN!

Kites are FUN!

Sunday, April 26th, 2009 will go down as one of the nicest days of the year in beautiful Rhode Island.  A surprisingly warm 80-85 degree day with low humidity and no wind.  I was suppose to work a half day at my mall job but was told not to come in.  Management felt that since it was the first “nice” day of the year, we didn’t need the normal staffing that a Sunday would require.

My girlfriend and I decided to take this opportunity to go out and enjoy the day.  We packed a small cooler and headed to Jamestown, Rhode Island.  Jamestown has a little spot called Beavertail (insert Butthead laugh) with a picturesque lighthouse and huge rocks on the ocean.  We sat on the rocks, took some pictures, and had a nice picnic style lunch.

After an hour, we got the drinking itch and decided to transplant ourselves to a local restaurant that was near the water.  The restaurant was an older establishment that was actually brought over in pieces from England and was put back together at this location.  There’re famous for their Sunday brunch that we were unfortunately late for, but some empty seats at a cozy bar called our names.  We sat down asking the bartender, who was a ten-year veteran of the restaurant, for a menu of their speciality drinks.  This guy was a pro.  He was able to size up my girlfriend and made a suggestion that opened her eyes in excitement, a fruity mimosa.

As the bartender engaged in small talk, I found myself captivated by the ending of Game 4 of the Bull/Celtics.  During commerical breaks, for whatever reason, the bartender insisted on bringing up topics to discuss.  First it was the history of the restaurant, than it was the famous people he had served, and then he said it…

“Do you like to fly kites?”

I don’t think I’ve ever been asked that question EVER!  I was completely blind sided.  I turned to my girlfriend with a puzzled look but instantly recognized that she had that same bewilderment that I had.

I kind of mouthed the words “What the fuck.”  Together we both looked back at the bartender but no one said a word.  Was this a trick question?  Was this a way to test my intelligence?  Was I being set up for a joke?  Is this new swinger slang?  All of these thoughts went through my head, as I tried to figure out what this forty year-old bartender was trying to accomplish with this questions.

In what seemed like an hour of silence, but in reality was probably about 2 seconds, I mumbled an incoherent word.  I honestly couldn’t tell you what I was trying to say but I did make an audible noise.   The bartender then begins a story about his friend who decided to leave a kite flying overnight and when he returned the next morning found the kite still in the air.

I still have no idea the point to his story.  I think he might have been suggesting something for us to do or trying to impress us with stories of his crazy friends.  Either way it was odd!

We left a few minutes after that, asking each other what was up with the bartender.

So if you had to take away a moral to this story; “If you don’t have anything good to say, don’t say it at all….or you can beat it!”