Semi Sonic Is Playing, Take a Hint

The end of one's shift inching closer and closer is the greatest, most relieving feeling.  Almost free!  Equate it to a jail sentence (although extreme, sometimes it feels that way, but just follow along), and you have days left till parole.  Next thing you know, some new group walks in and says, "Just kidding!  You got a few more weeks in the clink!"  Those stragglers in a bar fifteen minutes before close is the parole board denying me my freedom.

You do not want to mess with my freedom.

If playing "Closing Time" by Semisonic wasn't a clue that you might want to finish your whiskey and beer (and get the heck out), walking in after the "I know who I want to take me home" part will get you a a drink with contemplation of a loogie decoration.

Have you ever heard, "You don't have to go home, but you can't stay here"?  Every connotation that has is absolutely, unequivocally true.  Patronizing a bar fifteen minutes or less to closing time doesn't mean you just beat the clock.  It means you've rolled the clip of Waiting in the bartender's head, and he/she is thinking of the many ways to get back at you; ultimately ending in something called "The Goat."

Freedom and sanity are all we have to look forward to at the end of the night because, unlike you, we can't get hammered while we are at the bar.  As much as I want to start slamming shots down to make my night better, paying bills by working a steady job seems to tip the scale a little more.

Taking away the freedom to leave when my shift is done is like taking a baby bear from the mama, dumb and with a wrathful retaliation.  Bartender Bear isn't a cute cartoon version that belongs in the Berenstain Bear series.

No, we aren't some wereanimal that starts bone cracking and fur growing immediately like some freak version of the hulk, but if there were anything in our hands at the time, you better believe we'd go Macguyver on you and fashion something with a paperclip, my Hawthorne strainer, and an ice cube that would injure you permanently.

Closing time doesn't mean keep drinking.  Semisonic may have had a nicer way of putting it, but it means get out before the bartender has to hurt you in order to get freedom.