But There's Nobody Here! (Cross the Bridge)

So, Lil Sis and I headed into the wilds of northern Tampa last night for a peek at Faze 2's Flow4Dough. God, the inside of that place is so much nicer than, like, half the places we normally hit, and yes, South Tampa, I mean you. Everything is all polished pale wood and soft, sexy spotlighting. The place is spotlessly clean, so much so than you can feel the difference in air quality between the inside of the club and the parking lot, like, in terms of measurable levels of pollution and sh*t, not just the whole Florida-outside-in-summer-as-gross thing.

The only thing that was a little weird was that there were, like, nine other people there. I guess that's an OK turn-out for a Monday night spoken word contest, and expecting six minutes of rhyme for a hundred dollar prize might be a bit of a deterrent to some - we're calling that about ten pages of prose, if you think about it - but Faze 2 is so spacious that it made things seem kinda cavernous for awhile.

When we got up to the bar, this boozy guy with hip-length dreads came up to us and was like, "I'm sorry, ladies. I walked away from the door for awhile. The cover is seven dollars."

"But there's nobody here," I said.

"I have to take the cover until eleven. I'm sorry." He actually did look sorry, and I was pulling out my wallet, anyway. I was just kinda saying, you know, because, seriously there was nobody there, but we chit-chatted a little bit, and I was trying to find out who had won the hundred bucks, but he wouldn't tell me or didn't know or was too drunk to understand what I was asking or something.

Next thing you know, we've ordered our drinks, and I pull out a cigarette, and the girl behind the bar, who looked quite beautiful in all sorts of shimmery gold makeup, came running - actually running - across the floor.

"No smokin' in the club! No smokin' in the club!"

I looked around. "But there's nobody here!"

"I know. I'm sorry. We have an outdoor patio, though." She, too, looked genuinely sorry.