Where Nobody Knows Your Name

I crossed from Boston Common to the pub on Beacon Street. A barstool, banter, beers awaited me, for I was bound for "Cheers", the suds-and-suckers landmark of The Hub. But this was not remotely as I'd hoped. So small and squat and square, and antiseptic! A couple from Des Moines, and one dyspeptic waitress in the "chow shack", neatly-roped. The silence made me feel I'd interloped. Six bucks a beer. As I morosely moped, the woman I'd come all this way to see (so blonde, so buxom, with such perfect skin) was far too occupied to lunch with me. Facades are only there to draw you in.