Get out. Escape. Lie. Cheat. Key a car. Whatever you have to do to get out of work and start your weekend early must be on the table. Nothing beyond a misdemeanor should be discounted unless you are slightly more than moderately sure you can get away with it.

It’s P.O.E.T.S. Day: Piss Off Early, Tomorrow’s Saturday, and my bar is stocked and ready with cold beer on a new tap system, an in-the-midst-of-being-overhauled wine list with some impressive new selections, and a smattering of liquors all guaranteed to ease the burdens of modern life, unless you get whiny or violent when you drink. We’ll have none of that, thank you very much.

Loquacious is good. A few glasses of wine and you become a raconteur? Please and welcome. Keep it upbeat though and make sure that the tv (television) can still be heard over your voice or the baseball nuts will get angry. We value a polite interaction at our bar.

Speaking of politeness, this week’s featured poet was so polite that he not only provided me a facile but ultimately corny segue from the “This is P.O.E.T.S. Day” schtick to the “about the poet” bit, he also included a self-addressed stamped envelope with every submission he sent to a publication so they would not be occasioned a cost to send him an acceptance or refusal letter. He did this even when he was Poet Laureate of England.