Walking Around on an Empty Day

Three pigeons were standing on the sidewalk of a major metropolitan city. The pigeons were concerned about their stock portfolios because the market had been doing very poorly recently. So poorly in fact, the streets were all but empty and everyone in their right mind was staying inside. 

The pigeons were not sure why exactly everyone thought the right move was to stay home. "I mean, it's the freaking market, it goes up it goes down, just because it went down a bit isn't any reason to stay home!" Maurice said, "But who am I? Just a freaking investing genius! The freaking Oracle from Ornithology!" Maurice emphasized his point by raising his wings over his head emphatically.

Janelle and Dominic, the other two pigeons, never understood this about Maurice. He always felt like no one agreed with him so he had to make his points by raising his wings over his head emphatically. In reality, Janelle and Dominic did agree with Maurice because was a very good investor (though no one called him the Oracle from Ornithology -- this nickname was Maurice's clumsy attempt to brand himself as a pigeon version of famed "Oracle of Omaha," Warren Buffet). 

In any case, regardless of how bad the stock market was doing and how it spooked everyone into staying in their homes, the three pigeons decided that the streets being this empty was as good a reason as any to grab a beer together. 

"I know a great place, it's two blocks from here and last year they brewed a beautiful Summer Saison." Said Dominic. 

Janelle and Maurice had no major preferences in this regard so they decided to go along with Dominic's suggestion. The two pigeons started to cross the street in the direction that Dominic had mentioned. They looked both ways, out of habit mostly, since no one was out as we had mentioned, so Janelle and Maurice stepped off the sidewalk and, 

"WHOA WHOA WHOA WHOA WHOA WHOA WHOA WHOA WHOA WHOA WHOA WHOA!" 

Janelle and Maurice stopped in their tracks and looked back at Dominic who had made his way up to the corner of the block. 

"What are you two DOING? Are you out of your minds? Use the freaking cross walk! We're not savages! Be a good citizen!"

Janelle and Maurice looked at each other and sighed. They walked over and joined Dominic at the crosswalk. This was Dominic's pet peeve. He hated it when folks jaywalked. It never made sense to the other two pigeons, it's not like anyone really cared -- If they had flown to the bar it wouldn't matter to Dominic if they had flown over the crosswalk or not. No, he wouldn't think twice if that happened. But, if they were walking somewhere and they didn't use the crosswalk? Look out! Not on Dominic's watch. Dominic had a great respect for the rules of the ground even today, even though NO ONE was outside to cause any problems.

Still, Janelle and Maurice thought it was very admirable of Dominic to care about the laws and the mores of the society even when no one was looking. They made their way to Dominic and began to cross the street using the crosswalk but, 

"Wait, wait..."

The walk sign changed from the demonic red hand to the angelic white walker and only then did Dominic let them cross. 

When they finally reached the bar, it was of course empty. So the three pigeons all decided to go with Dominic's recommendation of the summer saison. The three agreed that this year's batch was very interesting but ultimately lacked cohesion, feeling more like an array of many different, funky flavors thrown together in one glass rather than a well crafted and balanced saison. Such however, was often the case with saison's so they didn't mind. 

Around this time Janelle noticed that the bar had corn hole and, lucky for them, no one else was playing. Corn hole goes by many other regional names such as Bags, Bag Toss, Bean Bag Toss, Baggo, dummy boards, doghouse, dadhole, sacks, beans, beanbag, bean in the hole, ramps (Check your local listings for the name of the game in your area).

Janelle made a bee-line to the corn hole game and begin warming-up. You see, Janelle had decided sometime in her late 20's that she was going to take this game very seriously and work hard to become good at it. 

Dominic and Maurice sighed and made their way to the corn hole game as well. Maurice chided Dominic for choosing this bar. Maurice and Dominic usually tried to avoid going to bars with Janelle that had corn hole because she would get very intense about the games, she was very good, but the guys had never played corn hole on anything other than a casual level.

The game began and Janelle quickly sank three bags directly into the hole. 

"Boom! Yes! Turkey! Turkey! Turkey!" 

Janelle brought her arms in and begin strutting around gobble-gobble-gobble-ing in celebration of her 3 straight hole outs. Janelle had a way of talking lots of trash and actually backing it up with her play, which was a deadly combination. Even though the boys knew this was all in good fun they couldn't help but get their feelings hurt a little bit. 

Still, they knew Janelle didn't mean to hurt their feelings and they were more than happy to help her prepare for the upcoming all city corn hole championship. In fact, Dominic and Maurice were sure their friend was going to win the whole damn thing. And when she did they'd be sure to be in the stands supporting. She'd do the same for either of them. 

Even if, as the pigeons assumed, no one else wanted to leave their house because the stock market was so bad.