No False Pretenses

"You look like douchebags."

"Your dad and I are going to a Pretenders concert," I said. I was standing in E.'s family room talking to his teenaged son. "How are we supposed to dress?"

"Not like douchebags," said the boy.

"What do you think?" I asked his friend.

"You look fine," she said.

"See?" I said.

"That's the stupidest coat I've ever seen," he said.

"It's a leather jacket, for God's sake. What's wrong with it?"

"It's ancient."

"It's a leather jacket. It's supposed to be ancient."

He started humming under his breath. It took me a moment to catch the tune. Fat guy in a little coat.

"Pretty tough for someone who's afraid of a Huddle House," I said before going upstairs to find E. Time to go.

We had dinner before the concert, E. and I, with another guy, a mutual friend who's recently divorced. Duck salad and mussels and martinis. Grown up food and drinks.

Afterward we walked over to the venue, one of the good nightclubs in the country, maybe in the world. There was a warm up band and more drinks.

And the show? The sound was muddy, the song selection adequate. Did it make it onto my list of best concerts? Probably not.

But it was Chrissie Hynde singing "Chain Gang" in a little room filled with men and women wearing leather jackets that our kids hated. We toasted each other and if we weren't young, we weren't quite old either.