Open 24 Hours

If I had my way, all businesses and services would be open all night. Seeing as how I'm stuck at work all day and have spent more than my fair share of sleepless nights watching ABC World News Now (the news program that's on during the wee hours of the morning), it would be nice if I could turn the TV off, put on my shoes and go shopping or to the movies or whatever. I mean, what is the point of not only showing a Donato's Pizza commercial at 1:00 in the morning but informing the Insomniac Brigade that the large pepperoni is specially priced at $9.99 right now when Donato's is closed and you can't get the pizza the advertising people are making you crave? (Actually, there's no Donato's in my neighborhood, so I really suffer when that commercial comes on.)

But there are 24 hour establishments, you say. Why, there's Wal-Mart! And while I will admit to spending an inordinate amount of time at WallyWorld while the rest of the world is aslumber, we're not talking haute couture here, folks. Kathy Lee Gifford has a line of clothing there. Need I say more? The only thing more frustrating than the clothing section is the laughably small (and frighteningly mainstream) music/video department. Yes, I realize I have odd tastes in music, but I do not need a Backstreet Boys album. Or a Britney Spears album. Or 'N*Sync, or Destiny's Child, or whoever the band of the moment is. I also do not need an edited CD with all the dirty words bleeped out to the point that the lyrics make absolutely no sense. (Off topic, but I highly recommend a section of The Book of Rock Lists that cites the stupidest moments of music censorship. There's a line in the Jethro Tull song "Locomotive Breath" that was edited so that the offensive word was replaced by another word they spliced in from either another song or another point in the song. The result was the memorable line "got him by the fun." Bwah hah hah. Of course I've never heard this version, since WEBN just plays the unedited versions of songs and pays the FCC fines. I think ClearChannel can afford it.) And don't get me started on the book selection.

Still, I guess you really can't knock a store where you can buy a new outfit for work, a toaster oven, and stuff to completely remodel your bathroom at 3 am. Well, unless you live near a Wal-Mart that discontinued the 24 hours thing. The closest 24 hour Wal-Mart to my house is a 30 minute drive. If I'm driving that far, I'm going up the road a few more blocks and going to Meijer. At least I can do my grocery shopping while I'm buying cheap clothes there.

Finding food is a problem as well. The last thing I want to do when I've been punted from the bar is go home and cook, so someone always suggests getting something to eat. Of course, the question always follows: where?

That used to be a no-brainer. It was Perkins, Short Vine Perkins, and there were no two ways about it. I can pretty much guarantee that any person who was a regular on the Beat Club/alternative scene in the late 80's ate at the Short Vine Perkins at least once. Or at least drank coffee there. Or just table hopped because they'd spent all their money on cheap amaretto sours at the club. I remember getting into the bar with no problem, but having to wait in a line out the door for an omelette and pancakes. It all made sense at last call, and no one seemed to care that the service was awful and the food was mediocre. It was just The Way Things Were.

And then Perkins got a new manager that wasn't too hip on the houseful of drunken customers moving from table to table, and instituted "the 15 minute rule." I discovered about the new policy one night after closing whatever club we were going to at that point.

"I'll have a coffee," I told the waitress.

"If you're just getting coffee, you have to leave in 15 minutes."

"Oh, really?" The last time I'd been in there, I'd finished the pot of coffee by myself (and left the server a big honkin' tip) with nary a complaint from the manager. "Well, then I guess I'll have a coffee...and an English muffin." You make dumb ass rules, Mr. Perkins Manager, and I'm going to be a smart ass. Take that.

I got my coffee and English muffin, and dug in. While I was eating one of my friends was told to sit down at his table and not talk to the people on the other side of the room. I felt like I was in kindergarten again.

The second after I finished chewing the last bite of muffin, the waitress whisked the plate away and pretty much told us to get out. "Excuse me? Why?" one of my friends inquired.

"We need the table space."

(Might I remind the reading public that it is now 3:15 in the morning. All the club patrons have gone home or wherever they were going after the club closed. The bar rush is long since over. No one is waiting for a table, and no one will be for several hours.)

We said nothing, paid our check, left our tips, and started frequenting the Anchor Grill in Covington. The Short Vine Perkins is now closed, and the rest of the Perkins chain closes at 10 or something like that. The Anchor...well, as it says on the side of the building, "we may doze, but we never close." Take that, Perkins.

Of course, there's also the occasional foray to Chili Company on West 8th or Denny's on Highland Avenue or the Waffle House in Covington, depending upon who I'm with or where I've been. (JohnnyB and Rosencrantz and Guildenstern live close to the Denny's, and Roger Mexico usually is the one who suggests Waffle House.) But my first choice is, and will always be the Anchor. Hey, no one else in town has a house band like that.

Other than that, and supermarkets and drug stores, the night owl is pretty much screwed. Well, I do take that back. I got out of work at an obscenely late hour last night, and needed to buy bendable wire for my Halloween costume, and did manage to find a 24 hour Home Depot. I would have been much more excited by my discovery if they'd actually had the wire. Nice staff, but this monolith of home improvement couldn't provide me with my simple request. The dinky little hardware store we'd gone to the day before could. Go fig.

And where, I ask you, is the 24 hour coffeehouse? Is it just me, or does this seem like an obvious marketing idea? And I'm not talking that Angst Coffee House thing, where they're open from 7 pm to 7 am. Plus, I always feel like a senior citizen there. I swear the average age there is something like 16. It's the Teen Punk Drop Inn Center. (Good coffee, though, and they serve Jolt Cola. Wheee!)

Maybe that's my calling in life, to open a 24 hour coffeehouse and serve extra super high octane caffeinated stuff. That way I could work there all the time. And book all the bands at weird hours, and have early morning poetry readings, and...

I really need to get more sleep. For a moment that sounded like a good idea.