There is still magic in the name and phone number on a paper cocktail napkin.

On the bar there are the regular bar accoutrements: clear plastic paper napkin holder, black plastic holder of straws, stacks of coasters, a few rubber mats for the bartender to set down drinks. Maybe the clear and black plastic holders are different in the fancier bars; maybe they are ceramic, or glass, or just plastic with a marble pattern. I don't know: I don't often frequent fancy bars. I don't like my drinks to have what amounts to an eight-dollar ambiance charge.

Down at one end of the bar is a black plastic holder of straws, but instead of straws it holds a collection of cheap grey plastic ballpoint pens. Sometimes one is used for a crossword puzzle; a surprising number of people at the bar do crossword puzzles on a regular basis. But the main purpose of the cheap grey plastic ballpoint pens is to write down a name and phone number.

Sure, it is the era of the cell phone, but still people write down numbers, often on a paper cocktail napkin. You could enter the number and name directly into your phone, but that has a different connotation, I think; it implies this will be a number you will return to regularly in the future. And a lot of numbers and names given out late at night in bars are meant to be forgotten, eventually.

There is still magic in the name and phone number on a paper cocktail napkin. The unique scrawl of a person's own hand, to begin. Written large, written small. Flourishes. Parallel to the napkin edges, diagonal, skewed, unsteady. Possibly illegible: is that a 3 or an 8. For instance.

Of course, there is the art to writing on a paper cocktail napkin with a cheap grey plastic ballpoint pen. Some of the pens start dry; some stay dry. This, of course, tears the paper. Some of the pens blob and glob and pool, which probably means smearing and a streak of blue ink on the side of your writing hand that you don't notice until the morning.

Sometimes the numbers are called; sometimes not. Sometimes the phone is answered, sometimes it goes to voicemail. Sometimes it is a wrong number because of illegibility; sometimes it is wrong number because it was fake to begin. The paper cocktail napkin and the cheap grey plastic ballpoint pen have a mystery to them that you are not going to find in, say, a text. It can remind you of the person in a way that numbers on a screen cannot do.

But the college girls; they usually enter the number and name into their phones. They will not have a drawer in a desk that has a dozen napkins from the last year, each with a hazy memory. The numbers will be clear and bright for them, even if they no longer remember who the person is.



- james james

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