The Peculier Pub is not particularly peculiar in any way other than how it has a large number of incredibly delectable beers on tap yet somehow manages to attract a myriad of people who come in to spend their money on watered down commercial American swill, the sort that would generally be found in large kegs at parties with people all around it doing hand stands and trying to drink as much as possible without getting alcohol poisoning.

Did They Like It?
There was of course the possibility that they enjoyed the beer, but some people found this just a bit hard to swallow as a concept. The practice was, of course, quite good for the pub fiscally, and it allowed for the better beers to be sold at more reasonable prices. More reasonable than your average pub or bar would sell it for, in any case. This could have been why there often was a good crowd in the pub, particularly at nights. This night was not to be an exception, as Felix and Kate had a bit of trouble getting to the one table that was not occupied. With such a crowd, it too should have been packed with people, but the table was empty – there was no beer on it.

Sitting down, they began to look over the lengthy beer list. “So, ah, Kate” Is this something that you do, ahm… do you go out on a lot of dates?” Kate looked amused by this question. “I don’t, actually. I don’t know what has come over me lately, I’ve been a bit more bold in this field. It’s as though something has happened to me, and now I just, I guess, take more risks with this dating thing. Playing it ;safe’ didn’t get me anywhere? Or was that too much information?”

“It wasn’t too much, really.”
“Good to know, then.”
One of the bar staff, a tall woman with straight blonde hair and deep blue eyes came over to the table. “Are you ready to order?”

Felix took a quick glance at the menu. “Oh, which one was it, the one, the stephan?” he began to say.
“Weihenstephaner?” the bartender offered. Felix quickly glanced over to Kate, who had a slightly puzzled look on her face. She then smiled, and nodded. “Yeah, I think that’s it.”
“Right, that’s it, then. Er… two pints of that, please,” he said, handing her a bill. The bartender walked away to get the drink. “Crazy name for such a great drink,” he commented.

First Date
“Yeah, I know,” she replied “So, do you often check out women in well lit cafes, or was this an exception?” Felix blushed. Caught, he thought. Not the best position to be in. Maybe she wasn’t interested in him after all. He started to stammer, “Er, I…” but she cut him off. “I’m kidding.” But was she? What did it really matter? What was he doing here in the first place? Besides the fact that he came here to get a drink. Was he really interested in Kate, or was it more of a matter of trying to see if his idealic fantasy of what she was like matched up with reality? Either way, the drinks were on the way over and he was being awfully quiet for someone on a first date.

He looked around the room, searching for something to talk about. Some point of interest that could possibly spring forth into a real conversation, that might even propel her to be more than marginally interested in him. How crowded the bar was – a definite no. That was more than likely to be just about as interesting as talking about the weather. She would surely sense he was being shallow and uninteresting.

Awkward
“So, what do you do, exactly?” Kate asked.
“What do I do?”
“In terms of working. Job.”

“Oh, right, job.” As in, the thing he hadn’t had in months, ages, he couldn’t even begin to remember the last time he had a full time position somewhere. Now things were so bad that he had a hard enough time finding even temporary work. It would be good if he could find any sort of work. Of course, it would probably help if he spent just a little bit more time searching for work. It could even be considered not an entirely bad thing if he would say something else. This was the sort of thing that generally was done when one was having a conversation. What could he possibly say? Perhaps being honest wouldn’t be the worst thing to do in the world. “I’m actually in between jobs right now.” He paused and picked up his beer, taking a small sip. “This is actually pretty good, I think.”

Looking at her own drink, Kate said, “Yeah, this is good.” Weihenstephaner beer, coming from the oldest brewery in the world, has some fairly distinct characteristics which makes it quite popular amongst some of its supporters. “So, what do you do when you’re not looking for work?”

“Well, there’s always a good read. I’ve been enjoying classic editions of the New York Times courtesy of an extraordinarily neat neighbor who puts out the previous day’s Times in the recycling pile out in the hall.” Yeah, that’s the right selling point. Tell her that you read old newspapers so you don’t have to pay for it. That will really get her on your side. This date wasn’t looking too promising.

They sat like that for maybe another hour or so, exchanging little bits of banter and the occasional witty thought. Felix mentioned a few things about his friend Sandy, and Kate talked about her own line of work which involved Account Management for an ad firm in Midtown. The kind of thing that a person could easily make a living from it, but not necessarily something to write home about. She was happy enough with her job, but she thought she could have been doing more with her life. He knew that he should have been doing more with his life, since what he was doing with his life was fairly minimal at this point in time.

Conclusion: Tea Biscuits
In a supermarket worlds away (specifically, the world known as the Upper West Side), Klaus was walking through the aisles in a perplexed manner. How many varieties of tea biscuits were there? Well, at the least he wasn’t all too badly off since she had given him a bit of a big clue – that her favorite brand was made in Israel. The only problem was that he was having trouble finding any tea biscuits which were made in Israel. Buying food from Israel seemed to be an entirely different kind of shopping. It was a good thing that the packages had English on them as well as Hebrew – Klaus wasn’t too good when it came to non-Romance foreign languages. This wasn’t the first place he had gone to try to find these special tea biscuits that Sandy had asked him to bring. It was the least he could do, bringing these tea biscuits. She was bringing the tea, and it seemed like they were going to have a pleasant time in Bryant Park. It was one of those obscure places of romance, the park. Too many romantic adventures were born in Central Park, and sweet Bryant Park was woefully ignored, comparatively speaking. This was not going to be a day of ignoring the park, he thought.