There's nothing more pitiful that a middle aged guy who's drunk at lunchtime, in public.

I'm trying to eat my grilled chicken salad at Regas the other day. (They call this chain Grady's in some locales. If you have one near you, I suggest you eat there. It is good grub, and the salads are the best I've ever had anywhere in the world.) But, since I like to eat at the bar and read the paper during lunch, I have to put up with the smokers and the cell-phone yuppies. Seldom, at lunch, do I have to endure a drunken guy about my age, telling this black guy next to him how he used to be a DJ on the black radio station back when.

It's noon, and I've watched this pitiful bastard throw back four beers and two shots of whiskey. (The bartender told me in an aside that he'd had four beers and a shot before I got there.) So he's getting fairly loud, and you can tell the black guy, even if he believes this bullshit, is getting a bit tired of hearing about it.

It's just then that "trim" enters the picture. This is when it got really ugly in the whole place. The fool starts talking in a very loud voice, he's practically yelling, about all the TRIM he used to get. "Trim was no problem, baby! We had the Trim! Trim was easy!" There are families eating within earshot, on a Sunday, after church.

I just looked down at the feta cheese in my salad and said a silent prayer. "There, but for the grace of God...."