From: Happy hour invitations I once sent; redacted

Co-conspirators in frivolity—

I feel it only appropriate to remind you of two things:

1) It's Thursday, so come to Happy Hour at [-] on [-] at 5:00PM. I actually probably won't be there, but I know my solemn duty to remind everyone.

2) THE RAVENS WON THE SUPERBOWL. Please keep this in mind as you heed the cautionary tale of one who ignores happy hour invitations, only to be accosted by a more relaxed fellow (it's obviously a ripoff of a great man's great poem):

Once upon a Thursday boring, as I sat up, nearly snoring

Over many a teeming legal treatise I was doomed to scour—

While I studied, hardly reading, suddenly there came a pleading,

As if someone gently leading, leading me to times less dour.

‘’Tis frivolity,’ I grumbled, ‘leading me to times less dour –

I won’t go to Happy Hour.’

 I had reason to be wary—it was newly February,

And each glowing streetlight shone its specter of electric power.

‘Twas with vigor I was gunning—striving to augment my cunning,

Cement my own name in the running—running for a job’s long hours—

For that rare and coveted post that students seek: a job’s long hours—

And perhaps political power.

But the cheery, hopeful winking of an unope’d e-mail blinking

Irked me—jerked me from the learnèd tomes that I was to devour;

So that now, to calm the wandering of my mind, I took to pondering,

‘’Tis some friend of mine who’s squandering Thursday night at Happy Hour—

Some acquaintances are squandering their whole night at Happy Hour; —

Desperate, they, for times less dour.’

My resolve to study strengthened; and my visage saddened, lengthened;

‘Friend,’ typed I, ‘acquaintance, truly your plans I hope not to sour;

But the truth is I am reading, and so gently you came pleading,

And so kindly you came leading, leading me to times less dour,

That I’ve scarce a thought at passing’—here I know I made him glower:

‘I won’t go to Happy Hour.’

Too long the response in coming, mute I sat there, reading, gunning,

Dreaming, weighing social options I had thought outside my power;

But the silence was unbroken, and my inbox gave no token,

And the only words there spoken were the subject: ‘Happy Hour.’

This I whispered, and another jumped to hear it: ‘Happy Hour!’

Here he left, too, for times less dour.

Turning then to studies galling, my dejected spirits falling,

Soon again I heard a calling ringing through my study tower.

‘Surely,’ said I, ‘and without fail that bespeaks another e-mail;

Let us read, then, into its tale of this Thursday’s Happy Hour—

Let my books unpaged a moment and consider Happy Hour—

For the sake of times less dour!’

Open here I clicked the missive, when with manner impermissive,

In there slouched a bacchanalian fresh, it seemed, from Happy Hour.

Not the least address he offered; every word he spoke was stuttered,

And, with mien of common drunkard, there he blacked out in my tower—

Blacked out by a bronzèd bust of Blackstone in my library tower—

Blacked out thanks to Happy Hour.

Then this sleeping sot beguiling my sad fancy into smiling,

By his careless countenance and by his urgent need to shower,

‘Though thy senses have abated; though,’ I said, ‘you’ve over-sated,

I’ll not hold you reprobated, wanderer of the nightly hours—

Tell me where the night winds blow you in the Dionysian hours!’

Quoth the drunkard, ‘Happy Hour.’

Much I marveled this reposing barfly to respond while dozing,

Though his answer offered wayward revelers no directive power;

For we cannot (if we’re prudent) help admitting that no student

Found, on prescriptions thus impudent, his true path to Happy Hour—

Prescriptions from a blacked-out boozer by a bust within my tower

Of simply ‘Happy Hour.’

But the drinker, snoozing lonely by the bronzèd bust, spoke only

That one word, as if directions in that word he did empower.

Nothing further then he uttered—not an eyelash then he fluttered—

‘Till I scarcely more than muttered, ‘I am doomed to tidings dour—

Condemned to spend this evening gunning here within the library tower.’

Then the sot said, ‘Happy Hour.’

Startled at the stillness broken by reply so aptly spoken,

‘Doubtless,’ said I, ‘what he utters is the sole thing in his power;

On his lips these words were rendered by some generous bartender

Who served him—sent on a bender—‘till he wound up here. And how’re

Words of revelry, once stuck, to fall away in climes so dour?

Like Happy—Happy Hour.’

But this tosspot still beguiling all my sad soul into smiling,

Straight I pulled a cheap felt chair in front of drinker; sat and scoured,

There into the carpet sinking, I betook myself to thinking,

‘Whence this night carouser?’; linking this advent to other Hours—

Linking all the possibilities of other downtown drinking Hours—

He designed with ‘Happy Hour.’

This I sat engaged in guessing, but no syllable expressing

To the foul whose glassy eyes now slumbered thoughtless in my tower;

This and more I sat divining, with my head at ease reclining,

Weighed down by my hopeless pining for the way to Happy Hour—

By the bleak and dismal prospect looming over studies dour—

Of missing Happy Hour.

Then, methought, my sharpened reason seized upon the bar of [ee]sons,

Where to seven from three-thirty is anointed Happy Hour.

‘Hark!’ I cried, ‘Thy tongue belies thee; now come five, tis there you’ll find me,

Quaffing gin and tonic, beer, and whiskey priced for Happy Hour—

Quaffing as to sire in the weekend and a time less dour—

At Happy—Happy Hour.'

‘Drinker!’ said I, ‘O Carouser! Comrade still, if drunk or sober!—

Whether motivated or by hazard stumbled to my tower,

Is it true you’ve come from [ee]sons? Speak before you lose your reason,

Send me where my friends invited me to join in times less dour—

Where with revelry they now are patronizing Happy Hour—

Send me off to Happy Hour.’

‘Drinker!’ said I, ‘O carouser! Comrade still, if drunk or sober!

By the grading curve, by Advanced Practice before which we cower,

Tell this soul who seeks an Eden: Will I find it there at [ee]sons?

Will I find at [ee]sons soon—at five o’clock—the Happy Hour?

There at [ee]sons, on [some name of] Street, the way to times less dour?’

Quoth the drunkard, ‘Happy Hour.’

‘Be those words our sign of parting, inebriate!’ I shrieked upstarting—

‘Get thee back into the tempest of the Night’s Dionysian hours!

Leave no Bud Light as a token of that lie thy soul hath spoken!

Leave my loneliness unbroken!—quit the bust within my tower!

Slouch away from by my bust, and leave me here to studies dour!’

Quoth the drunkard, ‘Happy Hour.’

And the drunkard, never stirring, still is slurring, still is slurring

By the bronzèd bust of Blackstone based within my library tower;

And his eyes have both glassed over, far removed from sharpness sober,

And the halogen lighting o’er him streams to light his drunken glower;

And directions from that drunkard dreaming dreams of Happy Hour

Are, I fear, outside his power.