Some time in a bar.

The Urban Dictionary defines bar time as a clock set ahead fifteen minutes. Because of this practice, I have always assumed that bars actually exist fifteen minutes in the future. After a few drinks, this may constitute time travel.

I walked into a familiar bar last night, and immediately spotted the first guy. I had not seen that guy lately, although I used to see him all the time. While we were talking, the other guy walked up followed closely by the girl. The two guys and the girl and I had a grand time, exchanging pleasantries and observing the fact that our paths once crossed regularly, and that we rarely see each other now at all. Although, to clarify, I run into the girl frequently, and the other guy occasionally -- but the first guy, not so much.

We enjoyed our adult beverages, caught peripheral snippets of State of Grace (which, as the first guy reminded me, was one of several films I had recommended back in the days when we encountered each other more frequently). Everyone enjoyed Robert Mitchum's tale of Thunder Road when it came up on the jukebox. Talk continued. Recently deceased rock stars were mourned. The dating habits of the first guy were called into question by the second, bad jokes were butchered, and everyone paused to exchange pleasantries with the bar owner and his lovely wife as they walked outside to smoke cigarettes.

Someone had a baby in the bar. That is to say, a woman in the bar was in possession of a baby. And now that bars are smoke-free, I can't even scare up an objection. You could barely hear the little magpie over the jukebox.

Said jukebox continued playing music from every decade of my life, while we continued reminiscing about the recent past, fifteen minutes in the future. I suspect this combination of time-trickery may have curative powers, but I have no way of proving it.

Eventually the guy and the other guy left, and I continued the conversation with the girl. We discussed attending high school overseas, which only one of us had done, and stealing a stuffed animal from a police car, which neither of us had done. I introduced the term "hail fellow, well met" to her vocabulary (for at least the length of time it took her to repeat it) and she employed a famous Woody Allen quote concerning what the heart wants, to help me justify one of my more expensive habits. (Premium cable.) Like most people in bars, we talked about the past and the future. Under these circumstances, one could easily claim that the present doesn't even exist, except as a chronological borderline.

I went home and watched an episode of Breaking Bad my DVR had dutifully saved since Sunday night. This allowed me to flagrantly cheat time -- one more time.