Only 20 Minutes Until Daniel Zender Gets To Leave Bar
Manzanita 2013 — Having already spent a considerable amount of time quietly glancing around the bar and standing on the periphery of others’ discussions until walking away under the pretense that he needed to get another drink, Daniel Zender calmly assured himself there were only 20 minutes left before he could leave the noisy and raucous night at the San Dune.
'I told myself I’d stay here until 9:45, and I already killed 15 minutes avoiding conversation by rotating repeatedly from the bar through the back patio to appear occupied, and another cumulative half hour pretending to receive texts, so I just need to make it a few more minutes,' he thought while examining the frothy glass at the bottom of his first beer, an activity he planned to perform for the next 10 minutes.
'If I go to the bathroom one more time, I’ll have been here long enough to approach Tull and mention that we should probably get going. Then it’s just a matter of placing this pint glass on the bar and inching backwards until I get out the door so that not too many people see me leaving and ask why I’m heading out so early.'
At 9:41 PM, sources reported that Zender’s plans for withdrawal were dangerously imperiled by a friend’s insistence that he crush one of seven recently acquired Long Island Iced Teas.
